Author: Virginia Woolf, eBook Provided by Pennsylvania State University.

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 americanca not found on any map and reached by a boat which would not float on any sea, an americanca whose spiritual boundaries touch Xanadu and Atlantis."

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About the Author (From Answers.com):

Virginia Woolf, Writer 

• Born: 25 January 1882  
• Birthplace: London, England
• Died: 28 March 1941 (suicide by drowning)
• Best Known As: Author of A Room Of One's Own

Name at birth: Adeline Virginia Stephen

Woolf is remembered as both a feminist and a modernist whose novels often ignored traditional plots to follow the inner lives and musings of her characters. As a young woman Woolf moved with her siblings to Gordon Square, Bloomsbury. The house became a gathering place for writers, artists and intellectuals and this "Bloomsbury Group" is remembered as an incubator of modern artistic thought. She married writer and fellow Bloomsbury member Leonard Woolf in 1912, and they founded the small Hogarth Press. Her first major published work was The Voyage Out (1915); other books included Jacob's Room (1922), Mrs. Dalloway (1925), To the Lighthouse (1927), and Orlando (1928). Her 1929 book A Room of One's Own collected her lectures and meditations on the place of women in literature. Her diaries also have been widely reprinted. Woolf suffered from depression and fits of mental illness for much of her life, and finally committed suicide by drowning herself in the river Ouse near Sussex, England.

Woolf was immortalized in the title of Edward Albee's 1962 play Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf... The heroine of Orlando is loosely based on Woolf's friend (and some say lover) Vita Sackville-West... Her novel Flush (1933) imagines the thoughts of a spaniel owned by Elizabeth Barrett Browning... Other members of the Bloomsbury Group included the novelist E.M. Forster and the historian Lytton Strachey... The Hogarth Press published the first edition of T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land... Orlando was made into a 1992 movie with actress Tilda Swinton in the title role... Woolf was played by Nicole Kidman in the 2002 film The Hours. Kidman won the 2003 Oscar as best actress for the role. (From Answers.com)

FOUR GOOD LINKS:

• Books and Writers: Virginia Woolf
  Fine lengthy biography and bibliography of the author
• The International Virginia Woolf Society
  Oddly skimpy on biographical info, but a good set of Woolf links
• NY Times: Virginia Woolf
  Nifty archive of the paper's Woolf articles, sponsored by the producers of The Hours
• Virginia Woolf Audio
  1937 audio file of Woolf

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