Melymbrosia: A Novel

Virginia Woolf completed her first novel, "Melymbrosia, " in 1912. The story concerned the emotional and sexual awakening of a young Englishwoman traveling abroad and bristled with social commentary on homosexuality, the suffrage movement, and colonialism. Woolf was warned, however, that publishing an outspoken indictment of Britain could prove disastrous to her fledgling career as a novelist. The revised, quieter book was published under the title "The Voyage Out." Virginia Woolf scholar Louise DeSalvo spent seven years uncovering the original novel from Woolf's papers in the archives of the New York Public Library.