While not on my Classics Club List, I agree that Virginia Woolf's The Voyage Out is one worthy to be counted among the Classics. It's style is unique. It's story is not typical. It's heroine isn't much of a heroine. But yet despite all of that, it is written with beautiful imagery and an incredible amount of heart-felt emotion. Virginia Woolf was a lady who faced a lot of tragedy and heartache. So much so that it drove to her to some dark times of depression and eventually to taking her own life. But when she came out of those dark times, she was able to write. She was able to put pen to paper and spin a story of love, life, family, heartache, travel and adventure. She was able to write in such a way that her readers could sit back for a moment (or a day) and breathe in the salty air that one would breathe while crossing the ocean or hear the sounds of the jungle while riding up the river. She wrote in such a way that her readers could ache with Rachel or question...
Jane Smiley wrote, "Many people, myself among them, feel better at the mere sight of a book."