Adeline Virginia Woolf (1882—1941) was an English writer and literary critic, the leading figure of the modernist literature of the first half of the twentieth century. She also was part of a group of English intellectuals, writers, and artists, graduates of Cambridge, called the Bloomsbury group. "The Voyage Out" is Woolf's first novel, and it revolves around Mr. and Mrs. Ambrose and their niece, Rachel Vinrace, on a sea voyage from London to the South American coast. On the ship, Rachel faces different people: politicians, writers, scientists. She learns life, experiences the first feeling, and then even real love, and begins to understand what is valuable in human relations.