Collection: The Voyage Out

Behold this collection of courageous books that voyage beyond convention. We are proud to present The Voyage Out, our major new catalogue — our first printed expedition from our new premises on Charing Cross Road — which offers both a map and a compass for exploring voices that push the edges of the known into new creative territories.

Virginia Woolf greatly inspired this catalogue, both through her title A Voyage Out, and through a new method of composition initially recorded in her diary, one with "no scaffolding; scarcely a brick to be seen; all crepuscular, but the heart, passion, humour, everything, as bright as fire in the mist" (Woolf, Diary, pp. 13-14).

It was Anne Dacier who translated The Odyssey so masterfully that no one dared attempt Homer for half a century thereafter and in The Bluest Eye, it was Toni Morrison who harnessed rage as a force for transformation. While Cindy Sherman graces the cover of our catalogue, it was artist Francesca Woodman who spoke about the use of her own body in the arresting photography she made before the age of 22 – “It’s a matter of convenience, I’m always available” she so simply stated about the journey to becoming one’s own muse.

Each one of our selections are in some way voyages, sometimes without explicit destination, but always with the agenda of issuing a cultural alteration, both in thought and in practice.