Melymbrosia

Book excerpt: First published in England 1915, and following nearly a decade of composition, "The Voyage Out" is Virginia Woolf's first novel. Rachel Vinrace, the woman at the center of this beautiful and original story, is an intelligent, yet innocent, young English girl who embarks on a sea voyage to South America with distant relatives. Although she is far from the drawing rooms and theaters of London, she comes to learn of the worlds of politics and sex, love and marriage. Her journey takes a delicious turn when she meets -- and falls passionately for -- Terence Hewet, a man she meets in the Brazilian coastal town of Santa Marina. But it is in tragedy that this novel, poignant in its emotions, yet uncompromising in its vision, ultimately ends.