Virginia Woolf's first novel, published in 1915, was a remarkable beginning for a writer who was still to produce such masterpieces as Jacob's Room, Mrs. Dalloway, To The Lighthouse, and The Waves. A haunting book, full of light and shadow, it follows Mr. and Mrs. Ambrose and their young, immature niece, Rachel, on a sea voyage from London to a resort on the South American coast. Here the story explores the relationships of a group of lively, eccentric English tourists before eventually focusing on Rachel. For her the voyage out continues as she grows to maturity, through love and then illness and death.

Displaying little of the experimental style of the author's later books, The Voyage Out has the semblance of a realist novel. But its beauty of language, its wit, its intuitions, its elusive flow of story clearly stake out the individual domain of Virginia Woolf.