In the original jacket. Green cloth binding with black title on the spine and front board.

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For conditions, please view our photographs. This is an early rare example of the work of a NEW WOMAN. “A Girl of the Klondike” is a novel by the author Victoria Cross (Annie Sophie Cory), not a literal award of the Victoria Cross medal. First published around 1899 / 1900. It is a historical romance set during the Klondike Gold Rush, telling the story of a strong female protagonist, Katrine Poniatovsky, navigating the wild landscape and the greed for gold. 

Details of the Book: Author: Victoria Cross (pen name of Annie Sophie Cory). Setting: The Klondike region during the late 19th-century gold rush. Themes: Explores themes of ambition, greed, survival, love, and the human spirit’s resilience in a male-dominated world. Plot: Follows the independent and strong-willed Katrine as she interacts with men like the missionary-turned-miner Stephen Wood and the ambitious Henry Talbot, all while dealing with the “gold fever” that drives the region’s inhabitants. Historical Significance: The book is considered a culturally important work that offers insight into the social dynamics and harsh realities of the Klondike Gold Rush. 

Annie Sophie Cory (1 October 1868 – 2 August 1952) was a British author of popular, racy, exotic New Woman novels under the pseudonyms Victoria Cross(e),[Vivian Cory and V.C. Griffin. Annie Sophie Cory was the youngest of three daughters born to Colonel Arthur Cory and his wife Fanny Elizabeth Griffin. Her older sisters were the poet Adela Florence Nicolson and the editor Isabell Tate, who edited the Sind Gazette in India. She was born in Rawalpindi, Punjab, and was also baptized there on 27 October 1868. Her father was employed in the British army at Lahore, where he was editor of the Lahore arm of The Civil and Military Gazette. Despite her parents’ sojourn in India, they eventually returned to England, having maintained ties to their native country. Cory attended London University at nineteen years old in 1888, but did not graduate. In the 1891 England Census, Cory is listed as residing at 35 Tavistock Crescent, Paddington, London with her mother. After Arthur’s death in 1903, Annie traveled extensively over the Continent with her maternal uncle, Heneage McKenzie Griffin, who was the owner of the Seven-Thirty silver mine in Boulder, Colorado and prominently involved in the mining industry as one of its richest entrepreneurs. They lived together from 1916 to 1939, until his death in Italy. Having been bequeathed her uncle’s entire fortune, Cory settled in Monte Carlo to live with female friends. She also had a residence at 8 Via Cantonale Legano, Switzerland. After her death in Milan, Italy, Cory was buried beside her uncle in 1952. She left £87,304 10s 8d in her will. Annie Sophie’s most established pseudonym was Victoria Cross. According to The Bookman, she chose this pseudonym, “because her initials are V.C. and…she is the descendent of a V.C.” (Victoria Cross medal recipient). Themes: Cory’s stories often detail behaviors and desires unusual in the Victorian period such as female cross-dressing, unbridled and unashamed sexual desire, longing for and fear of interracial sexual relationships, and questioning of traditional heterosexual gender roles for men and women. Though her reputation as a writer of New Woman fiction is now more obscure, Cory is remembered chiefly as an author of decadent literature.

The New Woman was a feminist ideal that emerged in the late 19th century and had a profound influence well into the 20th century. In 1894, writer Sarah Grand (1854–1943) used the term “new woman” in an influential article to refer to independent women seeking radical change. In response the English writer Ouida (Maria Louisa Ramé) used the term as the title of a follow-up article. The term was further popularized by British-American writer Henry James, who used it to describe the growth in the number of feminist, educated, independent career women in Europe and the United States.The New Woman pushed the limits set by a male-dominated society. Independence was not simply a matter of the mind; it also involved physical changes in activity and dress, as activities such as bicycling expanded women’s ability to engage with a broader, more active world.