The Voyage Out

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Virginia Woolf's First Viterary Debut

Rachel Vinrace embarks for South America on her father's ship and is launched on a course of self-discovery in a kind of modern mythical voyage. The mismatched jumble of passengers provide Woolf with an opportunity to satirise Edwardian life.

The novel introduces Clarissa Dalloway, the central character of Woolf's later novel, Mrs Dalloway. Two of the other characters were modelled after important figures in Woolf's life. St John Hirst is a fictional portrayal of Lytton Strachey and Helen Ambrose is to some extent inspired by Woolf's sister, Vanessa Bell.

This is a wonderful story which is packed full of stunning descriptions of place - both interior and exterior; unique and eccentric characters; sensitive evocations of a variety of human emotions; moods and memories; wishes and regrets. Virginia Woolf writes a smorgasbord for the senses and peppers it with provocative comments on social issues.

Rachel's journey from a cloistered life in a London suburb to freedom, challenging intellectual discourse and discovery very likely reflects Woolf's own journey from a repressive household to the intellectual stimulation of the Bloomsbury Group.

About the Author: Adeline Virginia Woolf (née Stephen; 25 January 1882 - 28 March 1941), known professionally as Virginia Woolf, was an English writer and one of the foremost modernists of the twentieth century.

During the interwar period, Woolf was a significant figure in London literary society and a central figure in the influential Bloomsbury Group of intellectuals. Her most famous works include the novels Mrs Dalloway (1925), To the Lighthouse (1927) and Orlando (1928), and the book-length essay A Room of One's Own (1929), with its famous dictum, "A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction."

Her parents were Sir Leslie Stephen (1832-1904) and Julia Prinsep Duckworth Stephen (née Jackson, 1846-1895).Leslie Stephen was a notable historian, author, critic and mountaineer.Woolf was educated by her parents in their literate and well-connected household. Her parents had each been married previously and been widowed, and, consequently, the household contained the children of three marriages.

Woolf was born in 1882 in London, and throughout her life she had the opportunity to surround herself with London's elite thinkers. She began writing early and published her first novel, The Voyage Out, in 1915. She would go on to write numerous novels, short stories, and works of non-fiction.