The Voyage Out

The Voyage Out is the first novel by Virginia Woolf published in 1915 by Duckworth; published in the U.S. in 1920 by Doran.

In The Voyage Out, one of Woolf's wittiest, socially satirical novels, Rachel Vinrace embarks for South America on her father's ship, and is launched on a course of self-discovery in a modern version of the mythic voyage. It introduces Clarissa Dalloway, the central character of Woolf's later novel, Mrs. Dalloway. The mismatched jumble of passengers provide Woolf with an opportunity to satirize contemporary Edwardian life.

E. M. Forster described it as "... a strange, tragic, inspired book whose scene is a South America not found on any map and reached by a boat which would not float on any sea, an America whose spiritual boundaries touch Xanadu and Atlantis... It is absolutely unafraid... Here at last is a book which attains unity as surely as Wuthering Heights, though by a different path."

— Excerpted from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.