A young woman learns about life, and love found and lost, in this
thought-provoking debut novel by one of the twentieth century's most
brilliant and prolific writers--with an introduction by Elisa Gabbert,
author of The Unreality of Memory
"Absolutely unafraid . . . Here at last is a book which attains unity
as surely as Wuthering Heights, though by a different path."--E. M.
Forster
London, 1905: Twenty-four-year-old Rachel Vinrace is a free spirited but
painfully naïve young woman when she embarks on a sea voyage with her
family to South America. Arriving in Santa Marina, a town on the South
American coast, Rachel and her aunt Helen are introduced to a group of
English expatriates, among them the sensitive Terence Hewet, an aspiring
writer who is drawn to Rachel's unusual and dreamy nature. The two fall
in love, unaware of the tragedy that lies ahead.
With hints of Jane Austen, The Voyage Out is a softer and more
traditional novel than Virginia Woolf's later work, even as its poetic
style and innovative technique--with detailed portraits of characters'
inner lives and mesmeric shifts between the quotidian and the
profound--reflect Woolf's signature style.
The Modern Library Torchbearers series features women who wrote on
their own terms, with boldness, creativity, and a spirit of
resistance.