The Voyage Out (Collins Classics)

Product Information

The Voyage Out is announced as the author’s first novel. That fact is the most hopeful thing about it. With the cleverness shown here, crude as most of it is, there should be a possibility of something worth while from the same pen in the future. Leslie Stephen compiled a photograph album and wrote an epistolary memoir, known as the “Mausoleum Book,” to mourn the death of his wife, Julia, in 1895 – an archive at Smith College – Massachusetts

Chapter XX. The Flushings, along with Hewet and Hirst plus Rachel and Helen go on the expedition. They sail upstream in a small ship. Hewet is very conscious of Rachel’s presence. They go on a walk together in to the forest – to declare their love for each other. When they return to the ship they feel detached from their companions. The plot, such as it is, centers on Rachel Vinrace, who voyages to South America on her father’s ship in a quest for self-discovery. Rachel’s shipmates allow Woolf an opportunity to satirize British society in the Edwardian era. We first meet Clarissa Dalloway, who readers will encounter later in Mrs. Dalloway, one of Woolf’s most popular and accessible novels. This is a plausible theory. But does the evidence in Woolf’s corrections bear it out? There are two main places in the text where the majority of changes are indicated: both are pivotal moments in the narrative.It is not clear from the structure or the logic of the novel why Rachel has to die. There are no practical or thematic links to what has gone on before in the events of the narrative; nobody else is affected by the ‘fever’; and the conclusion of the novel (‘woman dies suddenly’) is not related to any of the previous events. That the author knows her London in its most interesting aspects–those in which members of Parliament and their coterie of relatives and friends are the active figures–there can be no doubt. If we look at her works, what we evidently notice is that the idea which most engages Virginia Woolf is that of life it In particular, perspective and distance play a great role in the representation of character and mind throughout the novel. As Rachel’s ship moves away towards South America, the passengers take a far different view of England and the urban life than when they were in its midst: “Not only did it appear to them to be an island, and a small island, but it was a shrinking island in which people were imprisoned” (32). Distance gives a new perspective; we can see the destabilizing tendencies of modernism – its questioning of Europe as the essential center of world culture, its interest in how a certain angle of vision shapes subjectivity – begin to appear. Similarly, while thinking in South America of the Cambridge intellectuals that he oftentimes finds so spiritually desiccated and loathsome, Hirst thinks, “Far away on the other side of the world as they were, in smoky rooms, and grey medieval courts, they appeared remarkable figures, free-spoken men with whom one could be at ease; incomparably more subtle in emotion than the people here” (208). Hirst’s fellow scholars can be admired only at a remove: it is precisely because their image is smoky, grey, unclear, that they appear clever, sophisticated, delightful. As Lily Briscoe later thinks in To The Lighthouse, “So much depends…upon distance.” [4] Woolf realized the perspectival nature of reality even within her comparatively conservative first effort. After missing my train station once and drawing attention to myself by inappropriate, lonely (loony) laughter, I became more cautious while reading in public. But today, I embarked on the last chapters, and there are things you can't help if you have got to know characters closely, and they all of a sudden die on you! So I sat on the train, crying, tears ruining my make-up and making my immediate environment incredibly uncomfortable. Which led me to reflect that we are not that much better at dealing with people's emotions nowadays than the famously uptight Belle Epoque society I was reading about!

Carolyn Heilbrun draws attention to Simone de Beauvoir’s argument that men have found in women more complicity than the oppressor usually finds in the oppressed (Heilbrun, Towards Androgyny, p. xi). In a more recent book, Heilbrun notes that ‘public opinion polls show that a higher proportion of women than men oppose passage of the Equal Rights Amendment’ (Carolyn Heilbrun, Reinventing Womanhood (London: Victor Gollancz, 1979) p. 88).Chapter X. Rachel is reading modern literature and reflecting philosophically about the nature of life. She and Helen receive an invitation to Hewet’s expedition. The outing presents the radical young figure of Evelyn Murgatroyd, and Helen meets Terence Hewet, If this book were a painting instead of a novel, it would be focused entirely on Helen so intrinsic to everything is her role in Woolf’s composition.

Helen and Rachel are also invited on this expedition, and they decide to go since they do not know many people in Santa Marina. On the expedition, Hewet strikes up a conversation, finding her interesting as she distances herself from the crowd and people-watches. Together, they come across a couple, Susan Warrington and Arthur Venning, who have just become engaged. They are kissing in the grass, and Rachel and Hewet are caught off guard by witnessing this intimate moment with someone they have only just met. This seems to make them more comfortable with each other, and as they talk, they run into Hirst and Helen, who have also been talking. The four become a fairly close friend group and, after the expedition, spend quite a bit of time together. Hirst particularly attaches to Helen, who he thinks of as the only person whom he can truly have a good conversation with. Chapter I. Ridley Ambrose and his wife Helen are leaving London to join their ship, the Euphrosyne which is due to take them on a cruise to South America. They join their niece, Rachel Vinrace, whose father owns the ship. A fellow traveller, Mr Pepper reminisces critically with Ambrose about their contemporaries at Cambridge. They are then joined by the captain Willoughby Vinrace. A review of The Voyage Out by Virginia Woolf, originally published in the New York Times, June 1920: This English novel, by an English writer, gives promise in its opening chapters of much entertainment. Later, the reader is disappointed. Mary Poovey, The Proper Lady and the Woman Writer: Ideology as Style in the Works of Mary Wollstonecraft, Mary Shelley, and Jane Austen (London: University of Chicago Press, 1984) p. 6. There are two known copies of the first edition that Woolf is known to have used to record her intended alterations ahead of the 1920 re-issue in the USA. The first is in a private collection in the USA.Rachel's mother has passed away many years ago. The sea voyage and the subsequent months in Santa Marina show that Rachel is also on an inner journey, to understand herself better. She seeks advice from Helen, her aunt, and Helen and Rachel become close friends. When I first started reading The Voyage Out, I was not sure I would like it. Initially, I had a bit of difficulty keeping the various characters and names straight in my head. I wasn’t sure about them- I didn’t know if I liked any of them. But, as the ship reached the shore and each character was drawn so meaningfully, I was hooked. Feminism and the constraints faced by women during this time, marriage, and the individuality of persons are all issues examined very thoroughly here. Each person, man or woman, has his or her own struggles to which we become privy. Evelyn, another tormented young woman, is distressed over multiple marriage proposals and the desire to remain independent. “I thought the other day on that mountain how I’d have liked to be one of those colonists, to cut down trees and make laws and all that, instead of fooling about with all these people who think one’s just a pretty young lady. Though I’m not. I really must do something.” Surely, Evelyn was one of many women to suffer due to the barriers placed on her gender. Women are not the only ones here that agonize over life choices, self-examination, and the pursuit of happiness. As Hewet realizes he has fallen in love with Rachel, he frequently broods over his ideas surrounding the institution of marriage. He draws various pictures in his mind of married couples sitting together in a firelit room. “These pictures were very unpleasant… He tried all sorts of pictures, taking them from the lives of friends of his, for he knew many different married couples…When, on the other hand, he began to think of unmarried people, he saw them active in an unlimited world; above all, standing on the same ground as the rest, without shelter or advantage. All the most individual and humane of his friends were bachelors and spinsters." A sure-fire way to set the ‘klaxons’ off on the popular BBC panel show QI – where panellists have to avoid giving the obvious-but-wrong answer to interesting questions – is to ask, ‘Which Virginia Woolf novel first featured Mrs Dalloway?’ Of course, the question already feels like a trap, and Alan Davies would be right to be wary. For Mrs Dalloway (1925), perhaps Virginia Woolf’s best-known novel, came ten years after Woolf’s first novel, The Voyage Out (1915). And it is in The Voyage Out that we first find Clarissa Dalloway, albeit in a slightly different form from her later, more introspective party-throwing incarnation.

Rachel is Helen Ambrose’s twenty-something year-old niece and is herself a typical nineteenth century heroine: young, passionate, eager to fall in love, a Marianne Dashwood from Austen’s Sense and Sensibility, or, on a less passionate day, a Lucy Snowe from Brontë’s Villette. If this were an Austen novel, Rachel would be the central character and her meeting with the man she might marry would be the main event of the book. The Modern Library is proud to include Virginia Woolf’s first novel, The Voyage Out–together with a new Introduction by Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Michael Cunningham. Published to acclaim in England in 1915 and in America five years later, The Voyage Out marks Woolf’s beginning as one of the twentieth century’s most brilliant and prolific writers. Charming sound recording of radio talk given by Virginia Woolf in 1937 – a podcast accompanied by a slideshow of photographs. Woolf was at the centre of the revolution in the novel form during the time of modernism. The evidence is there in her annotated copy of The Voyage Out. After some time at sea, Helen, Ridley, and Rachel arrive at the resort. They have their own villa and settle in. As time goes by, Helen and Rachel make acquaintances and then good friends with several people in the resort. There are two of utmost importance: St. John Hirst, a student from Oxford University, and his good friend and companion Terrence Hewet, an aspiring author and novelist. Hirst is full of rather sexist views and confines to the idea that women are more objects than anything else. However, after talking much with Helen, Hirst finds a surprising amount of delight and enjoyment in her. But in Rachel, he finds nothing but what he calls annoying stagnation and utter dullness. He proceeds to call her rather unpleasant and insulting names and doesn’t see her as anything but worthless in terms of intellectuality. But Hewet sees Rachel much differently. Instead of judging her solely off of intellectual thinking, he connects to her on a personal and spiritual level. He sees that no, she is not just an idol object but much more so a living, thriving, unique human being. He defends her vigorously in front of Hirst and helps Rachel see herself from an objective standpoint, showing her the value and uniqueness she possesses. Hewet and Rachel share a bond while Hirst and Helen share a bond of their own. The four become quite close and intimate with one another.

Check-In

Woolf had set out to write something different from her contemporaries, and so, for all its formal conventionality, The Voyage Out might be seen as (to borrow Christine Froula’s phrase) ‘a Woolf in sheep’s clothing’, as something other than what it purports to be. It may seem less radically different and experimental than her later novels, but there are still key ways in which it departs from conventional narrative: its emphasis on the everyday, on meaningless conversations, on the difference between what people think and what they say. Chapter XVII. Rachel is powerfully disturbed by her feelings for Hewet, and a distance grows between her and Helen. One Sunday there is a service in the hotel chapel. Rachel is distressed by the absence of any genuine religious belief, and she objects to the spirit in which the service is held. When Mrs Flushing invites her to lunch, she erupts into a criticism of the sermon. Mrs Flushing proposes a river trip to visit a traditional native village. Hirst and Hewet argue over religion, literature, and Rachel. Chapter XVI. On their excursion Rachel and Hewet discuss the life of the typical unmarried middle-class girl (and its limitations) plus the issues raised by women’s suffrage. As he tells her about his literary ambitions she feels romantically attracted to him. He is excited yet dissatisfied by their intimacy and the tension between them. The Voyage Out by Virginia Woolf was the first novel by this iconic English author, published in Britain in 1915 and in the U.S. in 1920. Written at a point when Woolf was suffering from an acute period of mental illness during which there was a suicide attempt, the novel proceeded painfully slowly.