The Voyage Out

Resumen del libro

Helen and Ridley Ambrose are preparing to set off for an exotic resort off the coast of South America on the Euphrosyne, a ship belonging to Helen's brother-in-law Willoughby Vinacre. Also travelling with them is his daughter Rachel - a quiet, unremarkable girl raised in the London suburbs by her spinster aunts after the death of her mother. Along the way other people join on board, such as the upper-class Clarissa and Richard Dalloway and the scholar William Pepper.

As Rachel interacts with the other passengers, intrigued by their different personalities, it becomes clear that what started for her as a mere sea voyage is turning into a journey of self-discovery and a rite of passage that will change her for ever, transforming her into a fully fledged woman. Published in 1915 after a long period of gestation and several drafts, The Voyage Out marks Virginia Woolf's debut as a novelist. Perhaps the most conventional and accessible of her major works, it is essential both for understanding the early development of her style and for the light it sheds into her own biography and artistic vision.

Biografía del autor

Virgina Woolf (1882-1941), figura destacada del llamado Grupo de Bloomsbury , destaca junto con James Joyce, Franz Kafka o Thomas Mann entre los grandes renovadores de la novela moderna. En sus obras más famosas, como "La señora Dalloway" (1925), "Al faro" (1927) y "Las olas" (1931), experimentó con la estructura temporal y espacial de la narración mediante un poderoso lenguaje narrativo en el que se equilibran perfectamente el mundo racional y el irracional de los sueños y los delirios. Pionera en la reflexión sobre la identidad femenina, la condición de la mujer y su relación con la literatura y el arte, Virgina Woolf plasmó su pensamiento en varios ensayos y en la inclasificable "Orlando" (1928), novela en la que reflexiona con humor no exento de denuncia acerca de las diferencias entre hombres y mujeres a través de las experiencias del protagonista, un joven aristócrata que de manera espontánea e involuntaria se transforma en mujer.