Woolf was at the centre of the revolution in the novel form during the time of modernism. The evidence is there in her annotated copy of The Voyage Out. Compare Mr Widdowson in Gissing’s The Odd Women who, ‘Like most men of his kind … viewed religion as a precious and powerful instrument for directing the female conscience’ (George Gissing, The Odd Women (London: Lawrence & Bullen, 1893) ii, p. 39).

Carolyn Heilbrun draws attention to Simone de Beauvoir’s argument that men have found in women more complicity than the oppressor usually finds in the oppressed (Heilbrun, Towards Androgyny, p. xi). In a more recent book, Heilbrun notes that ‘public opinion polls show that a higher proportion of women than men oppose passage of the Equal Rights Amendment’ (Carolyn Heilbrun, Reinventing Womanhood (London: Victor Gollancz, 1979) p. 88). Chapter V. The ship encounters a stormy passage at sea, which lays everybody low for two days. Helen comforts Mrs Dalloway with champagne. Meanwhile Richard Dalloway follows Rachel into her cabin and kisses her impulsively. That night Rachel has disturbing dreams. London, 1905: Twenty-four-year-old Rachel Vinrace is a free spirited but painfully naïve young woman when she embarks on a sea voyage with her family to South America. Arriving in Santa Marina, a town on the South American coast, Rachel and her aunt Helen are introduced to a group of English expatriates, among them the sensitive Terence Hewet, an aspiring writer who is drawn to Rachel’s unusual and dreamy nature. The two fall in love, unaware of the tragedy that lies ahead. Rachel's mother has passed away many years ago. The sea voyage and the subsequent months in Santa Marina show that Rachel is also on an inner journey, to understand herself better. She seeks advice from Helen, her aunt, and Helen and Rachel become close friends.Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, trans. H. M. Parshley (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1983; 1st edn 1949) p. 70. An electronic edition and commentary on To the Lighthouse with notes on its composition, revisions, and printing – plus relevant extracts from the diaries, essays, and letters. Less formally experimental than her later novels, The Voyage Out none-theless clearly lays bare the poetic style and innovative technique–with its multiple figures of consciousness, its detailed portraits of characters’ inner lives, and its constant shifting between the quotidian and the profound–that are the signature of Woolf’s fiction. Compare Huxley’s comments on Burlap’s feelings for his dead wife in Point Counter Point: ‘These agonies which Burlap, by a process of intense concentration on the idea of his loss and grief, had succeeded in churning up within himself were in no way proportionate or even related to his feelings for the living Susan’ (Aldous Huxley, Point Counter Point (London: Chatto & Windus, 1928) p. 231).

Some critics interpret Terence’s description of himself as a great lover as a pretence on his part. See, for example, Louise DeSalvo’s Virginia Woolf’s First Voyage: A Novel in the Making (London: Macmillan, 1980) p. 46, and Mitchell Leaska, The Novels of Virginia Woolf: From Beginning to End (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1977) p. 22. Mary Poovey, The Proper Lady and the Woman Writer: Ideology as Style in the Works of Mary Wollstonecraft, Mary Shelley, and Jane Austen (London: University of Chicago Press, 1984) p. 6. Chapter XXIV. Sitting in the hotel, Rachel comes to an appreciation of her independent identity, even though she is joining herself to Hewet for the rest of her life. Miss Allan finishes her book on the English poets. Evelyn envies Susan and Rachel for being engaged, but she herself dreams of becoming a revolutionary.Chapter X. Rachel is reading modern literature and reflecting philosophically about the nature of life. She and Helen receive an invitation to Hewet’s expedition. The outing presents the radical young figure of Evelyn Murgatroyd, and Helen meets Terence Hewet, Charming sound recording of radio talk given by Virginia Woolf in 1937 – a podcast accompanied by a slideshow of photographs. As I admire Virginia Woolf immensely and identify with her issues and topics, I tried very hard to concentrate deeply enough to be able to read in a very distractive environment - squished into a full train. Woolf’s first novel straddles the conventions of realism inherited from the 19th century and the new, experimental fiction of the 20th. The Sydney text tells an important part of this story. Chapter XXII. Hewet and Rachel become engaged. Whilst she plays the piano, he writes notes for his novel – on women, which reveal his traditional chauvinism. They plan their future and get to know about each other’s past lives. They become very nostalgic for England – both the countryside and London.