The Voyage Out

The Voyage Out ( German: The trip also ) is the first novel by Virginia Woolf. It was published in 1915 and is still held in the conventional style of the time.

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The Voyage Out is the story of Rachel Vinrace, a 24 -year-old girl who has grown up without siblings in two aunts. Her father, Willoughby Vinrace is Reeder and takes her on a journey to South America. Also on board are the aunt and uncle of Rachel, the couple Ambrose. You drive from London via Lisbon to South America, where Ambrose want to spend a vacation and Willoughby Vinrace does business. Helen Ambrose suggests her brother to take Rachel to himself, as he continued to travel by ship.

In a coastal town called Santa Marina, for which there is no geographical correspondence in the real world, the Ambrose with Rachel let down in a villa. But life revolves mainly around a nearby hotel, where a colony of English holidaymakers lives. Quick form actual and potential lovers: Susan Warrington engaged to the lawyer Arthur Vennington, as Rachel Vinrace worshiped with the future writer Terence Hewet, his friend St. John Hirst shut the married Helen Ambrose, the lawyer Perrott is rejected by Evelyn Murgatroyd. Triggers for these complications are a tourist, the hotel's guests can try on a mountain, as well as a multi-day excursion up the river in a native village. Whether as a result of river trip remains open, but Rachel Vinrace suffering from a fever, where she eventually dies. The newly engaged Terence Hewet has to face her death.

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One issue is the slowly expanding opportunities open to women. In the words of Terence Hewet: "'I am a frequent streets where people live in a row and a home like the other looks, went along and was wondering what make the sky the women in there ,' he said. ' Just think: We have the beginning of the 20th century and until a few years ago no woman has occurred and said anything. This strange, dumb, not shown, life went on all these thousands of years in the background. Of course, we have always written about women - abused, they ridiculed or revered it; but it has never come from the women themselves. ' "

The hotel guests are members of a social class that needs to worry about their income not worry. Many men are scholars or want to be a writer, but also one of the women, Miss Allan, is working on a literary history. Virginia Woolf alludes to the various pairs of lovers, the long-standing married couples, but also to the living alone Miss Allan through the different perspectives of life that present themselves to a woman from the upper class.

The author had until then a trip to the Mediterranean made, but never visited South America. According kenntnisarm falls from their description of the continent. The locals and the other language hotel guests only form a backdrop that is hardly noticed by the action supporting the English.

Publication history

Virginia Woolf The Voyage Out has worked on more than four years. According to her husband, Leonard, she wrote this manuscript five times from beginning to end again. Her half-brother Gerald Duckworth accepted it in April 1913 for publication. It was thus one of two books by Virginia Woolf, which are not published in the Hogarth Press; this publisher acquired the rights until 1929.

The time to publication must have Virginia Woolf experienced as extremely distressing. In July 1913, announced again their illness, and on September 9, she tried to take her own life. Her husband Leonard Woolf postponed because of the publication, which seems to have Virginia's suffering, however, only extended. In February / March 1915, she suffered a relapse. The book was finally published on 26 March 1915 and thereafter her condition slowly improved.

The book was well received by critics, but sold poorly. By 1929, only 479 copies had been sold, and Virginia Woolf had Shilling taken from only 26 pounds 2 10p. For the couple Woolf so the question arose whether the two writers at all from selling their books would be able to live. Only when Virginia Woolf was famous for her later books, is also her first book sold.

Biographical Background

According to her biographer George Later and Ian Parsons The Voyage Out is a very biographical book. Rachel's aunt and uncle, Mr. and Mrs. Ambrose are, therefore, be equated with Virginia Woolf's parents, Helen Ambrose but also have traits of Vanessa Bell; Rachel delirium resembles the delirium during Virginia's failures. The figure of St. John Hirst was drawn by Lytton Strachey. The ship is called Euphrosyne for a book with youth verses, among others, Strachey and Leonard Woolf.

Virginia Woolf Designs Rachel Vinrace as unworldly girl who does not even know of the love between man and woman. So it can rediscover the feelings associated with them completely. Rachel Vinrace and her fiancé Terence Hewet think about marriage, the differences between men and women - the suffragette movement is mentioned several times - and about the possibility to live from work as a writer. These are questions that have to be employed during the time of writing and Virginia Woolf. She had also lived deposited to care for her sick father, in 1911 after a long break for the first time Leonard Woolf met and married him in 1912.

First edition

Virginia Woolf: The Voyage Out. Duckworth, London 1915 German under the title. The trip out. S. Fischer, Frankfurt 1997.