The Voyage Out

Helen
and Ridley Ambrose are preparing to set off for an exotic resort off the
coast of South America on the Euphrosyne, a ship belonging to Helen’s
brother-in-law Willoughby Vinacre. Also travelling with them is his daughter
Rachel - a quiet, unremarkable girl raised in the London suburbs by her
spinster aunts after the death of her mother. Along the way other people join
on board, such as the upper-class Clarissa and Richard Dalloway and the
scholar William Pepper. As Rachel interacts with the other passengers,
intrigued by their different personalities, it becomes clear that what
started for her as a mere sea voyage is turning into a journey of
self-discovery and a rite of passage that will change her for ever,
transforming her into a fully fledged woman.

Published in 1915 after a long period of gestation and several drafts, The
Voyage Out marks Virginia Woolf’s debut as a novelist. Perhaps the most
conventional and accessible of her major works, it is essential both for
understanding the early development of her style and for the light it sheds
into her own biography and artistic vision.