Woolf's first novel. Rachel Vinrace, a sheltered young Englishwoman in her twenties, sails on her father's ship to South America. She stays at a villa with her aunt and uncle and meets a wider circle of English visitors, and her view of life, love and herself begins to widen. The story is both a social comedy and a quiet inquiry into what it means to grow up as a woman at the start of the twentieth century. It shows Woolf's early style and the themes she would explore for the rest of her career.
Quotes
As the streets that lead from the Strand to the Embankment are very narrow, it is better not to walk down them arm-in-arm.