The Sea Lady

The Sea Lady is a fantasy novel by British writer H. G. Wells, including some of the aspects of a fable. It was serialized from July to December 1901 in Pearson's Magazine before being published as a volume by Methuen. The inspiration for the novel was Wells's glimpse of May Nisbet, the daughter of the Times drama critic, in a bathing suit, when she came to visit at Sandgate, Wells having agreed to pay her school fees after her father's death.[1]

This article is about the 1902 novel. For the 2006 novel by Margaret Drabble, see The Sea Lady (2006 novel).
The Sea Lady
First publication in Pearson's Magazine
AuthorH. G. Wells
Original titleThe Sea Lady: A Tissue of Moonshine
GenreFantasy
Publication date
July–December 1901
OCLC639905
TextThe Sea Lady at Wikisource

In presenting a creature of legend active in the prosaic contemporary genteel English society, the book clearly falls into the definition of contemporary fantasy, at the time not yet recognized as a distinct subgenre.

Plot

The intricately narrated story involves a mermaid who comes ashore on the southern coast of England in 1899. Feigning a desire to become part of genteel society (under the alias "Miss Doris Thalassia Waters"), the mermaid's real design is to seduce Harry Chatteris, a man she saw "some years ago" in "the South Seas—near Tonga," who has taken her fancy.[2] This she reveals in a conversation with the narrator's second cousin Melville, a friend of the family who adopts "Miss Waters". As a supernatural being, she is unimpressed with the fact that Chatteris is engaged to the socially-minded Miss Adeline Glendower and is trying to make amends for his wastrel youth by entering politics. With mere words, the mermaid shakes both Chatteris and Melville's faith in their society's norms and expectations, enigmatically telling them that "there are better dreams". In the end, Chatteris is unable to resist her alluring charms, though succumbing supposedly means his death.

Themes

Couched in the language of fantasy and romance that blends with light-hearted social satire, The Sea Lady explores serious themes of nature, sex, the imagination, and the ideal in an Edwardian world in which moral restraints are loosening. Wells wrote in Experiment in Autobiography that The Sea Lady reflected his "craving for some lovelier experience than life had yet given me."[3]

In its narrative structure, The Sea Lady plays cleverly with conventions of historical and journalistic research and verification. According to John Clute, "Structurally it is the most complex thing Wells ever wrote, certainly the only novel Wells ever wrote to directly confirm our understanding that he did, indeed, read Henry James."[4] Adam Roberts has argued that The Sea Lady was written in a kind of dialogue with James's The Sacred Fount (1901).[5]

See also

References
  1. Michael Sherborne, H.G. Wells: Another Kind of Life (Peter Owen, 2010), p. 145.
  2. H. G. Wells, The Sea Lady, Chap. 6, § II.
  3. Norman and Jeanne Mackenzie, H.G. Wells: A Biography (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1973), p. 179.
  4. John Clute, Pardon This Intrusion (Beccon Publications 2006), p. 123.
  5. A. Roberts, (2017), 'The Sea Lady', Wells at the World's End

Further reading
  • Austern, Linda; Naroditskaya, Inna, eds. (2006). Music of the Sirens. Bloomington (Ind.): Indiana University Press. pp. 56–58. ISBN 978-0253218469. Retrieved September 8, 2012.
  • Batchelor, John (1985). H. G. Wells. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 62–66. ISBN 978-0521278041. Retrieved September 8, 2012.
  • Connes, G. A. (1969). A Dictionary of the Characters and Scenes in the Novels, Romances, and Short Stories of H. G. Wells (Repr. d. Ausg. 1926. ed.). Folcroft, Pa.: Folcroft Press. p. 404. ISBN 978-0838313534. Retrieved September 8, 2012.
  • James, Simon J. (2012). Maps of Utopia: H. G. Wells, Modernity and the End of Culture. Corby: Oxford University Press. pp. 47–51. ISBN 978-0199606597. Retrieved September 8, 2012.
  • McLean, Steven, "'A fantastic, unwholesome little dream': The Illusion of Reality and Sexual Politics in H. G. Wells's The Sea Lady", Papers on Language and Literature, 49 (2013), 70–85.
  • Parrinder, Patrick; Partington, John S., eds. (2005). The Reception of H.G. Wells in Europe (1st publ. ed.). London: Thoemmes Continuum. ISBN 978-0826462534. Retrieved September 8, 2012.
  • Silver, Carole G. (1999). Strange and Secret Peoples: Fairies and Victorian Consciousness. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 114. ISBN 978-0195144116. Retrieved September 8, 2012.
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