Victoria Cross rose to prominence in 1895 as the author of a short story, "Theodora: A Fragment," and the novel The Woman Who Didn't, a response, in part, to Grant Allen's The Woman Who Did (1895). In novels and short stories that portray erotic events in exotic settings, she celebrated the power of sexual passion, based on the union of body and spirit, as life's chief reward. Rather than advocating permissiveness, her position amounted to a new religion, promoting love as the combination of spiritual affection and physical desire. During her forty-year career she wrote many novels and some short stories; her short fiction, apart from "Theodora," appears in three collections composed of stories that had not been previously published: Six Women (1906), Daughters of Heaven (1920), and The Beating Heart (1924). Although reviewers typically decried the excessive attention to sexuality, comparing her to Thomas Hardy and Emile Zola, her books sold well--from...