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The Sea Lady
The Sea Lady is a fantasy novel written by H. G. Wells that has 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.
146 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1902
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About the author
H.G. Wells
5,346 books11.1k followersHerbert George Wells was born to a working class family in Kent, England. Young Wells received a spotty education, interrupted by several illnesses and family difficulties, and became a draper's apprentice as a teenager. The headmaster of Midhurst Grammar School, where he had spent a year, arranged for him to return as an "usher," or student teacher. Wells earned a government scholarship in 1884, to study biology under Thomas Henry Huxley at the Normal School of Science. Wells earned his bachelor of science and doctor of science degrees at the University of London. After marrying his cousin, Isabel, Wells began to supplement his teaching salary with short stories and freelance articles, then books, including The Time Machine (1895), The Island of Dr. Moreau (1896), The Invisible Man (1897), and The War of the Worlds (1898).
Wells created a mild scandal when he divorced his cousin to marry one of his best students, Amy Catherine Robbins. Although his second marriage was lasting and produced two sons, Wells was an unabashed advocate of free (as opposed to "indiscriminate") love. He continued to openly have extra-marital liaisons, most famously with Margaret Sanger, and a ten-year relationship with the author Rebecca West, who had one of his two out-of-wedlock children. A one-time member of the Fabian Society, Wells sought active change. His 100 books included many novels, as well as nonfiction, such as A Modern Utopia (1905), The Outline of History (1920), A Short History of the World (1922), The Shape of Things to Come (1933), and The Work, Wealth and Happiness of Mankind (1932). One of his booklets was Crux Ansata, An Indictment of the Roman Catholic Church. Although Wells toyed briefly with the idea of a "divine will" in his book, God the Invisible King (1917), it was a temporary aberration. Wells used his international fame to promote his favorite causes, including the prevention of war, and was received by government officials around the world. He is best-remembered as an early writer of science fiction and futurism.
He was also an outspoken socialist. Wells and Jules Verne are each sometimes referred to as "The Fathers of Science Fiction". D. 1946.
More: http://philosopedia.org/index.php/H._...
http://www.online-literature.com/well...
http://www.hgwellsusa.50megs.com/
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/t...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._G._Wells
Wells created a mild scandal when he divorced his cousin to marry one of his best students, Amy Catherine Robbins. Although his second marriage was lasting and produced two sons, Wells was an unabashed advocate of free (as opposed to "indiscriminate") love. He continued to openly have extra-marital liaisons, most famously with Margaret Sanger, and a ten-year relationship with the author Rebecca West, who had one of his two out-of-wedlock children. A one-time member of the Fabian Society, Wells sought active change. His 100 books included many novels, as well as nonfiction, such as A Modern Utopia (1905), The Outline of History (1920), A Short History of the World (1922), The Shape of Things to Come (1933), and The Work, Wealth and Happiness of Mankind (1932). One of his booklets was Crux Ansata, An Indictment of the Roman Catholic Church. Although Wells toyed briefly with the idea of a "divine will" in his book, God the Invisible King (1917), it was a temporary aberration. Wells used his international fame to promote his favorite causes, including the prevention of war, and was received by government officials around the world. He is best-remembered as an early writer of science fiction and futurism.
He was also an outspoken socialist. Wells and Jules Verne are each sometimes referred to as "The Fathers of Science Fiction". D. 1946.
More: http://philosopedia.org/index.php/H._...
http://www.online-literature.com/well...
http://www.hgwellsusa.50megs.com/
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/t...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._G._Wells
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 56 reviews
February 11, 2020
A skippable, unnecessary, and nonetheless pleasant-to-dip-into novel from Mr. Wells, who felt compulsed to reach triple digits with his belletristic novelizing. Sure, he dashed off a few masterpieces in his day, but this is not one of them. I doubt he could even recall writing it a few years later. It's sort of about a mermaid, but more about the bickering about the mermaid, with social commentary tossed into the mix. It reads like a series of notes between cardboard cut-out characters cobbled together from one of his loose notebooks of pseudo-ideas. Yet, Wellsie manages a few dashes of genuine absurd humor, and a touch or two of surreal speculative description. A diverting, extremely minor short novel-thing I only read so I could add a check mark to my completionist charts. How many more of these grade-school-exercise-esque books wait to be discovered in the dusty heap of Wellisana?
September 27, 2020
This is Wells' updated version of H.C. Andersen's The Little Mermaid. But it is obvious from the beginning that this Sea Lady has ulterior motives. She has set her hat, as they say, for Mr. Chatteris, despite his engagement to Miss Glendower (who from the very beginning expresses distrust of this sudden rival). But then, the little mermaid hoped to win the prince away from his betrothed too, as I recall.
Wells certainly makes use of the “mermaid searching for a soul" theme from Andersen's tale (and earlier folklore). It makes the perfect cover for her insertion of herself into the Bunting household. As an immortal being and an outsider to human culture, she provides an excellent viewpoint for Wells to use to critique his society. No being struck mute for this interloper, she talks everyone into treating her as a disabled gentlewoman. She has not struck any deals with a witch, just covers her tail with long dresses and blankets and fakes humanity masterfully.
She points out absurdities in polite behaviour to cousin Melville, sometimes revealing her absolute alien status through her ability to mesmerize him. You can also infer that she is a comment on the clandestine nature of women's campaigns to marry men of their choice. She has potentially had hundreds of years to become a master manipulator and Wells also gives her the draw of the siren to help her to bewitch men. And this story, while superficially about the Sea Lady and her rivalry with Adeline Glendower, is about the men. Chatteris is having to choose between duty and freedom. Melville watches this, they confer, but he understands the dilemma. Whether to be a good person and have a boring life of dutiful service, or to throw caution to the wind and have an exciting (if short) existence following one's heart. It's a choice we all have to make—can we support ourselves in a way that doesn't kill our soul?
What I have never understood in the mermaid mythology is the reason that they seek to bewitch and take men away to undersea. What use to them is a drowned man? Maybe its just that old dog in a manger thing—if they can't have him, no one can.
If you like this book, you might also be interested in The Pisces, a novel which uses a merman to examine the exaggerated significance that romantic relationships are given in women's lives.
Cross posted at my blog:
https://wanda-thenextfifty.blogspot.c...
Wells certainly makes use of the “mermaid searching for a soul" theme from Andersen's tale (and earlier folklore). It makes the perfect cover for her insertion of herself into the Bunting household. As an immortal being and an outsider to human culture, she provides an excellent viewpoint for Wells to use to critique his society. No being struck mute for this interloper, she talks everyone into treating her as a disabled gentlewoman. She has not struck any deals with a witch, just covers her tail with long dresses and blankets and fakes humanity masterfully.
She points out absurdities in polite behaviour to cousin Melville, sometimes revealing her absolute alien status through her ability to mesmerize him. You can also infer that she is a comment on the clandestine nature of women's campaigns to marry men of their choice. She has potentially had hundreds of years to become a master manipulator and Wells also gives her the draw of the siren to help her to bewitch men. And this story, while superficially about the Sea Lady and her rivalry with Adeline Glendower, is about the men. Chatteris is having to choose between duty and freedom. Melville watches this, they confer, but he understands the dilemma. Whether to be a good person and have a boring life of dutiful service, or to throw caution to the wind and have an exciting (if short) existence following one's heart. It's a choice we all have to make—can we support ourselves in a way that doesn't kill our soul?
What I have never understood in the mermaid mythology is the reason that they seek to bewitch and take men away to undersea. What use to them is a drowned man? Maybe its just that old dog in a manger thing—if they can't have him, no one can.
If you like this book, you might also be interested in The Pisces, a novel which uses a merman to examine the exaggerated significance that romantic relationships are given in women's lives.
Cross posted at my blog:
https://wanda-thenextfifty.blogspot.c...
July 21, 2021
I read this delightful featherweight novel by H. G. Wells for completely parochial reasons: it’s set in my current hometown of Folkestone, and it’s among the inspirations for an interesting sculpture in the town by Cornelia Parker, The Folkestone Mermaid. I can’t imagine I would have stumbled across the book otherwise, but it set me off on an interesting sea nymph-driven voyage of literary discovery. I also read the urtext of the mermaid genre, Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué’s charming-sinister 1811 Hoffmanesque romantic fairytale novella Undine.
Nothing more distant could be imagined from de la Motte Fouqué’s soulful fable than Wells’s cynical 1901 take on it. Both involve a mysterious supernatural water sprite who makes her way to earth and the complexities of mortality, but Wells’s protagonist (Miss Doris Thalassia Waters, to give the name she assumes as a human) is an altogether fleshier, less ethereal and more calculating figure than the original Undine—a mermaid on a mission, as quickly appears.
The ‘Sea Lady’’s role in the novel is to serve as a symbol of the wild and watery and free and sexy, underlining the cramped and crimped, mind-forged-manacled lives of the human characters who encounter her. In that regard, the novel reminded me a little of Pirandello’s core philosophical theme (according to the critic Adriano Tilgher) of ‘life’ versus ‘form’. Setting up this contrast, the novel opens with a splendid satirical account of the paraphernalia of late-Victorian bathing. The girls of the family ‘Miss Waters’ targets troop down to the sea in bathing dresses, headdresses, stockings and shoes—all of which accompany them into the water—followed by ‘two men carrying ropes and things. (Mrs Bunting always put a rope around each of her daughters before they ever put a foot in the water).’
There isn’t a huge amount of suspense in this novella—what chance do mere anxious befuddled humans have against a force of nature?—but the details are beautifully worked through. I liked the slightly distanced narration, with the sceptical narrator piecing the story together from hearsay, mainly from the patently unreliable source of his stodgy, conventional cousin Melville, who falls under ‘Miss Waters’’s uncanny spell and never quite recovers from her unsettling insinuation that ‘there are better dreams’ than the ones in which human beings like to waste their short lives. I liked the way, as well, in which The Sea Lady pulls away from the slightly over-rigid dichotomies it seems to be setting up at first. Uptight, earnest, intellectual Adeline, the ‘Sea Lady’’s love rival for the handsome, wayward Harry Chatteris, reveals unexpected depths just as you think she is going to be a mere personification of whatever.
A successful read, then, all in all—though perhaps especially recommended for residents of Folkestone! Most of the real estate described in the novel survives, and Wells captures brilliantly that strange, liminal feel of any seaside location where the time-and-history bound land meets the eternal sea.
Nothing more distant could be imagined from de la Motte Fouqué’s soulful fable than Wells’s cynical 1901 take on it. Both involve a mysterious supernatural water sprite who makes her way to earth and the complexities of mortality, but Wells’s protagonist (Miss Doris Thalassia Waters, to give the name she assumes as a human) is an altogether fleshier, less ethereal and more calculating figure than the original Undine—a mermaid on a mission, as quickly appears.
The ‘Sea Lady’’s role in the novel is to serve as a symbol of the wild and watery and free and sexy, underlining the cramped and crimped, mind-forged-manacled lives of the human characters who encounter her. In that regard, the novel reminded me a little of Pirandello’s core philosophical theme (according to the critic Adriano Tilgher) of ‘life’ versus ‘form’. Setting up this contrast, the novel opens with a splendid satirical account of the paraphernalia of late-Victorian bathing. The girls of the family ‘Miss Waters’ targets troop down to the sea in bathing dresses, headdresses, stockings and shoes—all of which accompany them into the water—followed by ‘two men carrying ropes and things. (Mrs Bunting always put a rope around each of her daughters before they ever put a foot in the water).’
There isn’t a huge amount of suspense in this novella—what chance do mere anxious befuddled humans have against a force of nature?—but the details are beautifully worked through. I liked the slightly distanced narration, with the sceptical narrator piecing the story together from hearsay, mainly from the patently unreliable source of his stodgy, conventional cousin Melville, who falls under ‘Miss Waters’’s uncanny spell and never quite recovers from her unsettling insinuation that ‘there are better dreams’ than the ones in which human beings like to waste their short lives. I liked the way, as well, in which The Sea Lady pulls away from the slightly over-rigid dichotomies it seems to be setting up at first. Uptight, earnest, intellectual Adeline, the ‘Sea Lady’’s love rival for the handsome, wayward Harry Chatteris, reveals unexpected depths just as you think she is going to be a mere personification of whatever.
A successful read, then, all in all—though perhaps especially recommended for residents of Folkestone! Most of the real estate described in the novel survives, and Wells captures brilliantly that strange, liminal feel of any seaside location where the time-and-history bound land meets the eternal sea.
September 16, 2016
I need more backstory on the Sea Lady. What exactly did she want from Mr. Chatteris? It seems pretty obvious from a mythological standpoint that she is related to the Sirens of Greek mythology who lived in the Sea and lured sailors to their deaths via crashing against rocks and drowning. But the Sea Lady? She goes through a lot of tedium to get her man. The Sirens just sat on rocks and sang. Miss Doris Thalassia Waters—as she is named by her host family—takes the time to allow herself to be "rescued," and afterwards she assimilates herself, learns manners, and buys clothes and hires a lady's maid to push her around in a cart all day.
I have quibbled before in my review of The French Lieutenant's Woman, where a female character goes through an annoying amount of grief simply to bring down a singular man.
However, in the case of Miss Waters, she's supposedly immortal. She's got a lot of time to nab a guy. She sees him swanning around in the Mediterranean somewhere, she spends a couple years circling Europe, finds out his family and where they like to take their vacations, etc. No biggie. But the mystery is nearly irresistible: what does she want to DO with him???
Some reviews here on goodreads have focused on political agendas Wells had when writing this novel. It starts as a comedy of manners but ends up criticizing Socialism and work ethics. If Wells DID have that agenda in mind, it goes down easy. This is not a heavy novel. I love it.
Bonus: it has a swarm of awesome aunts—in particular one Lady Poynting Mallow. She sees no problem with the idea of her nephew Mr. Chatteris ditching his fiancee and marrying a mermaid. In fact, she makes a plan (not unlike Hannibal Smith of the A-Team) where Mr. Chatteris and Miss Waters can co-exist peacefully. He can get a boat and a diving bell, and they can keep large saltwater tanks in their house. Easy.
However, all other characters are understandably freaked out by the idea. And there are many hints sprinkled throughout that they're all thinking of sex. They don't complete their sentences and they allude to loaded terms like "natural," and "union of souls." They wonder about "her past," and, you know, her tail??? Kinky.
I have quibbled before in my review of The French Lieutenant's Woman, where a female character goes through an annoying amount of grief simply to bring down a singular man.
However, in the case of Miss Waters, she's supposedly immortal. She's got a lot of time to nab a guy. She sees him swanning around in the Mediterranean somewhere, she spends a couple years circling Europe, finds out his family and where they like to take their vacations, etc. No biggie. But the mystery is nearly irresistible: what does she want to DO with him???
Some reviews here on goodreads have focused on political agendas Wells had when writing this novel. It starts as a comedy of manners but ends up criticizing Socialism and work ethics. If Wells DID have that agenda in mind, it goes down easy. This is not a heavy novel. I love it.
Bonus: it has a swarm of awesome aunts—in particular one Lady Poynting Mallow. She sees no problem with the idea of her nephew Mr. Chatteris ditching his fiancee and marrying a mermaid. In fact, she makes a plan (not unlike Hannibal Smith of the A-Team) where Mr. Chatteris and Miss Waters can co-exist peacefully. He can get a boat and a diving bell, and they can keep large saltwater tanks in their house. Easy.
However, all other characters are understandably freaked out by the idea. And there are many hints sprinkled throughout that they're all thinking of sex. They don't complete their sentences and they allude to loaded terms like "natural," and "union of souls." They wonder about "her past," and, you know, her tail??? Kinky.
June 6, 2019
It's hard to see what H.G. Wells was going for in The Sea Lady, a so-called "fantasy novel" that features a mermaid determined to enter the respectable ranks of English society.
There is, of course, some real potential for comedy in this scenario, most of which is to be found in the book's opening pages. To be a "lady" the mermaid has to fulfill certain conventions that fit rather uncomfortably with her sea-bound status.
How does she go to church, for instance? The mermaid answers, rather dubiously, that she knows it is Sunday by hearing the hymns sung in English churches, and this triggers her own prayers. She tries tea for the first time, which she has no way of brewing. There are discussions about the difficulties of brewing tea, maintaining a hairstyle, wearing clothes, and reading books under the sea.
It seems to me that the sea lady, who is dubbed "Miss Waters," really wins the hearts of her new family by her enormous wealth, for it turns out that she has a box full of treasures. The family manage to conceal her status from the servants by hiding her tail, but there is a continual sense of social and, particularly, sexual anxiety about this part of her anatomy.
I liked all of these elements of the story, but the problem is that Wells simply doesn't do anything with this wealth of potential satire. Instead, the story meanders along, focusing instead of the chattering classes whose ranks Miss Waters has now joined.
What this strange marine stalker sees in these people, I have no idea. The water seems a much more interesting and meaningful place than among this lot of bourgeois bores.
There is, of course, some real potential for comedy in this scenario, most of which is to be found in the book's opening pages. To be a "lady" the mermaid has to fulfill certain conventions that fit rather uncomfortably with her sea-bound status.
How does she go to church, for instance? The mermaid answers, rather dubiously, that she knows it is Sunday by hearing the hymns sung in English churches, and this triggers her own prayers. She tries tea for the first time, which she has no way of brewing. There are discussions about the difficulties of brewing tea, maintaining a hairstyle, wearing clothes, and reading books under the sea.
It seems to me that the sea lady, who is dubbed "Miss Waters," really wins the hearts of her new family by her enormous wealth, for it turns out that she has a box full of treasures. The family manage to conceal her status from the servants by hiding her tail, but there is a continual sense of social and, particularly, sexual anxiety about this part of her anatomy.
I liked all of these elements of the story, but the problem is that Wells simply doesn't do anything with this wealth of potential satire. Instead, the story meanders along, focusing instead of the chattering classes whose ranks Miss Waters has now joined.
What this strange marine stalker sees in these people, I have no idea. The water seems a much more interesting and meaningful place than among this lot of bourgeois bores.
July 8, 2021
Review: The Sea Lady
By: HG Wells
5/5 STARS
•
“Did there come a sudden horror upon him at the last, a sudden perception of infinite error, and was he drawn down, swiftly and terribly, a bubbling repentance, into those unknown deeps? Or was she tinder and wonderful to the last, and did she wrapped her arms about him and draw him down, down until the soft waters closed above him into a gentle ecstasy of death?”
•
This is the story about “The Sea Lady”. A siren come to town for one “soul” purpose. (no pun intended lol) Wreaking havoc on a small family and embedding deeper into society, The Sea Lady has her eyes on one thing and one thing alone, a soul.
•
I don’t understand why people hate this story so much. I absolutely loved it! The ending was so beautifully written, I reread it multiple times. Wells put a lot into this book and you can tell through his writing. The descriptions are poetic even, as you can tell from the quote I posted above. Stunning piece of literature and so thankful to have a first edition in my collection.
•
5 star buddy read with Gregory K - Check out his review, it’s fantastic!
By: HG Wells
5/5 STARS
•
“Did there come a sudden horror upon him at the last, a sudden perception of infinite error, and was he drawn down, swiftly and terribly, a bubbling repentance, into those unknown deeps? Or was she tinder and wonderful to the last, and did she wrapped her arms about him and draw him down, down until the soft waters closed above him into a gentle ecstasy of death?”
•
This is the story about “The Sea Lady”. A siren come to town for one “soul” purpose. (no pun intended lol) Wreaking havoc on a small family and embedding deeper into society, The Sea Lady has her eyes on one thing and one thing alone, a soul.
•
I don’t understand why people hate this story so much. I absolutely loved it! The ending was so beautifully written, I reread it multiple times. Wells put a lot into this book and you can tell through his writing. The descriptions are poetic even, as you can tell from the quote I posted above. Stunning piece of literature and so thankful to have a first edition in my collection.
•
5 star buddy read with Gregory K - Check out his review, it’s fantastic!
February 9, 2012
Another gem from the master. Great passages of brilliant prose. It starts as a comedy of manners with elements of fantasy - there's a mermaid. Then it gets darker as we come to suspect the sea lady's motives...why did she come, what does she mean to do....how will this end. You'll have to read it to find out.
This really should be better known. It came during the masters peak period between 1895 and 1905. Place this with the best of his work.
This really should be better known. It came during the masters peak period between 1895 and 1905. Place this with the best of his work.
August 6, 2025
2,5 stars
I normally love coastal lore, but this could not hold my attention.
I normally love coastal lore, but this could not hold my attention.
December 19, 2018
An interesting little tale melding supernatural aspects with society and political drama. There was a darkness to this story, and a sense of humor, that kept me intrigued and engaged. It was the perfect length too.
"“But you are so limited, so tied! The little time you have, you use so poorly. You begin and you end, and all the time between it is as if you were enchanted; you are afraid to do this that would be delightful to do, you must do that, though you know all the time it is stupid and disagreeable. Just think of the things—even the little things—you mustn’t do.""
"“One gets brought up in an atmosphere in which it’s always being whispered that one should go for a career. You learn it at your mother’s knee. They never give you time to find out what you really want, they keep on shoving you at that. They form your character. They rule your mind. They rush you into it.”"
"“But you are so limited, so tied! The little time you have, you use so poorly. You begin and you end, and all the time between it is as if you were enchanted; you are afraid to do this that would be delightful to do, you must do that, though you know all the time it is stupid and disagreeable. Just think of the things—even the little things—you mustn’t do.""
"“One gets brought up in an atmosphere in which it’s always being whispered that one should go for a career. You learn it at your mother’s knee. They never give you time to find out what you really want, they keep on shoving you at that. They form your character. They rule your mind. They rush you into it.”"
March 29, 2017
I've never read H. G. Wells before. I do try to read as many classics as I can but with so many books on my wish list, sometimes they get pushed to the backburner. I'm fascinated by mermaids and this story caught my eye. I'd never heard of it before and just happened to see it when scrolling through book titles online. I found it for free on Kindle and read it within two days. It's a short story and I probably could have finished it in a few hours but with working full time and a two year old I just can't read as much as I'd like.
Anyway....this was a really interesting little story. Set during 1899, a proper English family takes in a mermaid and passes her off as human. It's rather humorous how they react to her and she reacts to them and being on land. The whole time, I'm thinking that she's got to be up to something unsavory and I can't wait to read more to find out why she really came to shore and what will happen with the people who have befriended her.
The whole story is told by a narrator who has his "facts" second and even third hand from "eyewitnesses." I've never read a story quite like that. The language was a little difficult to understand, sometimes, but nothing too difficult. I'm afraid of giving away too much, so I'll stop there. If you like mermaids, and light reading with a small touch of mystery, then I recommend this book.
Since reading this book and writing the above review, I have seen a film titled "Miranda." It was released in the 1930's or 1940's and is about a mermaid that comes to land to experience how humans live. It has some similar elements to this book and was possibly based off this and another mermaid story. There is a sequel called "Mad About Men."
Anyway....this was a really interesting little story. Set during 1899, a proper English family takes in a mermaid and passes her off as human. It's rather humorous how they react to her and she reacts to them and being on land. The whole time, I'm thinking that she's got to be up to something unsavory and I can't wait to read more to find out why she really came to shore and what will happen with the people who have befriended her.
The whole story is told by a narrator who has his "facts" second and even third hand from "eyewitnesses." I've never read a story quite like that. The language was a little difficult to understand, sometimes, but nothing too difficult. I'm afraid of giving away too much, so I'll stop there. If you like mermaids, and light reading with a small touch of mystery, then I recommend this book.
Since reading this book and writing the above review, I have seen a film titled "Miranda." It was released in the 1930's or 1940's and is about a mermaid that comes to land to experience how humans live. It has some similar elements to this book and was possibly based off this and another mermaid story. There is a sequel called "Mad About Men."
September 2, 2018
"Well, there are worse things in the world than a fishy tail."
Or a fishy tale for that matter. Especially one told by a dab hand like H. G. Wells in one of his frivolous moods.
A mermaid is rescued by the Bunting family on Folkestone beach. Due to her fine manners and the inherent snobbishness of Mrs Bunting, she is considered not just a mermaid but a Sea Lady.
Her sudden appearance is somewhat mysterious. Not to Mrs Bunting however: "so she has come to Folkestone. To get a soul." Good luck with that. I've been to Folkestone Bay, it's nice and all, you'll have no problem getting a sole, but a soul?
As the Sea Lady settles in the Buntings overlook the occasional 'glimpse of pagan possibilities' evidenced in the behaviour of 'Miss Rivers.' But she isn't a Miss, isn't a Sea Lady, and she isn't after a soul. She's after a man.
Wells addressed some important sociological issues in his timeless scientific romances, but he wasn't above writing for laughs. The Sea Lady is like a prawn cocktail, light and creamily satisfying, e.g.
'She professed herself greatly delighted with the sensation of being in air and superficially quite dry, and was particularly charmed with tea.
“And don’t you have tea?” cried Miss Glendower, startled.
“How can we?”
“But do you really mean——?”
“I’ve never tasted tea before. How do you think we can boil a kettle?”
Forget The Time Machine and War of the Worlds, this is a different kettle of fish altogether.
Or a fishy tale for that matter. Especially one told by a dab hand like H. G. Wells in one of his frivolous moods.
A mermaid is rescued by the Bunting family on Folkestone beach. Due to her fine manners and the inherent snobbishness of Mrs Bunting, she is considered not just a mermaid but a Sea Lady.
Her sudden appearance is somewhat mysterious. Not to Mrs Bunting however: "so she has come to Folkestone. To get a soul." Good luck with that. I've been to Folkestone Bay, it's nice and all, you'll have no problem getting a sole, but a soul?
As the Sea Lady settles in the Buntings overlook the occasional 'glimpse of pagan possibilities' evidenced in the behaviour of 'Miss Rivers.' But she isn't a Miss, isn't a Sea Lady, and she isn't after a soul. She's after a man.
Wells addressed some important sociological issues in his timeless scientific romances, but he wasn't above writing for laughs. The Sea Lady is like a prawn cocktail, light and creamily satisfying, e.g.
'She professed herself greatly delighted with the sensation of being in air and superficially quite dry, and was particularly charmed with tea.
“And don’t you have tea?” cried Miss Glendower, startled.
“How can we?”
“But do you really mean——?”
“I’ve never tasted tea before. How do you think we can boil a kettle?”
Forget The Time Machine and War of the Worlds, this is a different kettle of fish altogether.
November 29, 2012
The Sea Lady is a mermaid who ingratiates herself on an upper crust family who live by the seaside. She sets her sights on the dashing political hopeful in the family, plotting on taking him away from his fiancee and eventually his family. On occasion she drops her guard and lets it be known she is death underwater. Will she be stopped in time from committing this dastardly deed?
The Sea Lady takes a pretty good subject - mermaid turned siren in proper British society - and totally drops the ball. The narrative is told from the perspective of a cousin of a friend to the family (???) and the Sea Lady, who should be the main focus of the book, doesn't really get much to do except act sexy and threatening and barely gets much space in this 300 page book, anyway. I want my $10 back, Mr. Wells.
The Sea Lady takes a pretty good subject - mermaid turned siren in proper British society - and totally drops the ball. The narrative is told from the perspective of a cousin of a friend to the family (???) and the Sea Lady, who should be the main focus of the book, doesn't really get much to do except act sexy and threatening and barely gets much space in this 300 page book, anyway. I want my $10 back, Mr. Wells.
November 2, 2013
I totally loved this. It's part fairy tale, part social commentary about the struggle between desiring a life of romance and beauty and the demands of everyday life.
It's beautiful written and quite funny at times. It is also more crafted than many of Wells' other novels, more like The Time Machine or Invisible Man - not in content, but in style.
It's beautiful written and quite funny at times. It is also more crafted than many of Wells' other novels, more like The Time Machine or Invisible Man - not in content, but in style.
November 10, 2015
Clever, dark and philosophical on the dangers that unnatural and unhealthy desire have upon us. It isn't a fluffy little fairytale, although there is humour. It isn't the mermaid's story that is told, but that of the man she preys upon. Wells as usual captures the elusive, in this case, the question of morality, and depicts it with perfect humanity and reason.
October 19, 2018
3 stars (liked it)
A unique short classic about a mermaid from Cyprus who, after growing up alone and learning of the world only from books in her deep-sea library, comes ashore on England's southern coast. She then works her way into high society and attempts to attract a man who she had seen many years earlier in the South Seas. He is then faced with the choice of whether he will dispense with social norms and expectations to enter a relationship with her. Although I found the middle of the story a little slow, I enjoyed its creative premise and its overall theme about whether love can be found in unexpected places and forms.
A unique short classic about a mermaid from Cyprus who, after growing up alone and learning of the world only from books in her deep-sea library, comes ashore on England's southern coast. She then works her way into high society and attempts to attract a man who she had seen many years earlier in the South Seas. He is then faced with the choice of whether he will dispense with social norms and expectations to enter a relationship with her. Although I found the middle of the story a little slow, I enjoyed its creative premise and its overall theme about whether love can be found in unexpected places and forms.
April 11, 2021
The Sea Lady was serialised from July to December 1901 in Pearson's Magazine before being published as a volume by Methuen in 1902. The story sits closely in time, therefore, to the late Victorian revival of interest in Romanticism, fairy-tale, and fantasy. However when I came across the story, I was not expecting Faërie, fantasy and evil queens. Wells is best known for science fiction and socio-political novels, and a line of comic irony in undercutting the pretensions of the bourgeoisie.
This is an unexpected example of a truly evil queen of an Otherworld, who equates her ‘love’ of a mortal with bringing about his death, and whose relationship to him is purely controlling and destructive. This is a liminal fantasy depicting the despairing and catastrophic aspect of the Romantic vision. Yet the story opens in the sort of middle-class mundane setting typical of Wells:
‘There is certainly no remoteness nor obscurity about the scene of these events. They began upon the beach just east of Sandgate Castle, towards Folkestone, and they ended on the beach near Folkestone pier not two miles away. The beginning was in broad daylight on a bright blue day in August and in full sight of the windows of half a dozen houses.’
In this prosaic English seaside setting the Bunting family, with their guests the two Misses Glendower, are spending their summer break. As soon as the scene is set the action of the tale begins, with an attempt by Mr. Bunting and his son to rescue a lady swimmer who appears to be drowning. When brought ashore: ‘it is a curious thing that the Sea Lady was at least a minute out of the water before anyone discovered that she was in any way different from—other ladies.’ Eventually everyone notices that the ‘rescued’ lady has a tail and is in fact a mermaid. An unsuspected otherworld has irrupted onto the south coast of Late Victorian England.
Nevertheless, the greater part of the story sustains the familiar Wellsian note of social comedy, in his familiar settings of gentlemen’s clubs and ladies’ parlours. The sea lady works hard at becoming an intimate friend and protegee of Mrs. Bunting, and at charming all she meets. It is only very slowly that her intentions are revealed. Then the note of darkness sounds deeply.
The lady openly admits to Wells’s ‘man who was there’ character, Melville, that she has deliberately come to find a particular young man, Chatteris, who is engaged to the older Miss Glendower. Melville is shocked, startled, and at last afraid after this conversation. He tries to think the matter through:
‘He had not hitherto looked ahead to see precisely what would happen to Chatteris, … when, as seemed highly probable, Chatteris was “got.” There were other dreams, there was another existence, an elsewhere—and Chatteris was to go there! So she said! But it came into Melville’s mind with a quite disproportionate force and vividness that once, long ago, he had seen a picture of a man and a mermaid, rushing downward through deep water.… Could it possibly be that sort of thing in the year eighteen hundred and ninety-nine?’
The most compelling and horrific strand of the story is the revelation that it is indeed ‘that sort of thing.’ After a long conversation with Melville in which Chatteris tries hard to convince himself that he can cast off the enchantment of the sea lady and return to his fiancé and his dawning political career, he instead flees with her, carrying her to the beach and into the sea. Melville’s horrified thoughts of ‘what must have happened’ complete the portrait of a cruel sea-queen:
.Did he look back, I wonder? They swam together for a little while, the man and the sea goddess who had come for him, with the sky above them and the water about them all, warmly filled with the moonlight and set with shining stars. It was no time for him to think of truth, nor of the honest duties he had left behind him, as they swam together into the unknown. And of the end I can only guess and dream. Did there come a sudden horror upon him at the last, a sudden perception of infinite error, and was he drawn down, swiftly and terribly, a bubbling repentance, into those unknown deeps? Or was she tender and wonderful to the last, and did she wrap her arms about him and draw him down, down until the soft waters closed above him into a gentle ecstasy of death?’
So liminal are these fantastic and romantic elements of the tale that only the two chief characters, the lady and her victim, and the sub-narrator figure Melville, fully understand what is going on. The society that professes itself so deeply concerned with the needs of the poor exiled sea creature—as they choose to perceive her— willfully denies the reality of her nature and works hopelessly at attempts to integrate her into the late-Victorian middle-class. It is from the incongruities of this behaviour that Wells draws most of his comic irony in the tale; but what remains with the reader is the horror of the Sea Lady’s intentions and the acquiescence of her victim. ‘There were other dreams, there was another existence, an elsewhere’ she tells Melville, yet the new dream she offers Chatteris is simply to swim out to sea with her, and to drown.
This is an unexpected example of a truly evil queen of an Otherworld, who equates her ‘love’ of a mortal with bringing about his death, and whose relationship to him is purely controlling and destructive. This is a liminal fantasy depicting the despairing and catastrophic aspect of the Romantic vision. Yet the story opens in the sort of middle-class mundane setting typical of Wells:
‘There is certainly no remoteness nor obscurity about the scene of these events. They began upon the beach just east of Sandgate Castle, towards Folkestone, and they ended on the beach near Folkestone pier not two miles away. The beginning was in broad daylight on a bright blue day in August and in full sight of the windows of half a dozen houses.’
In this prosaic English seaside setting the Bunting family, with their guests the two Misses Glendower, are spending their summer break. As soon as the scene is set the action of the tale begins, with an attempt by Mr. Bunting and his son to rescue a lady swimmer who appears to be drowning. When brought ashore: ‘it is a curious thing that the Sea Lady was at least a minute out of the water before anyone discovered that she was in any way different from—other ladies.’ Eventually everyone notices that the ‘rescued’ lady has a tail and is in fact a mermaid. An unsuspected otherworld has irrupted onto the south coast of Late Victorian England.
Nevertheless, the greater part of the story sustains the familiar Wellsian note of social comedy, in his familiar settings of gentlemen’s clubs and ladies’ parlours. The sea lady works hard at becoming an intimate friend and protegee of Mrs. Bunting, and at charming all she meets. It is only very slowly that her intentions are revealed. Then the note of darkness sounds deeply.
The lady openly admits to Wells’s ‘man who was there’ character, Melville, that she has deliberately come to find a particular young man, Chatteris, who is engaged to the older Miss Glendower. Melville is shocked, startled, and at last afraid after this conversation. He tries to think the matter through:
‘He had not hitherto looked ahead to see precisely what would happen to Chatteris, … when, as seemed highly probable, Chatteris was “got.” There were other dreams, there was another existence, an elsewhere—and Chatteris was to go there! So she said! But it came into Melville’s mind with a quite disproportionate force and vividness that once, long ago, he had seen a picture of a man and a mermaid, rushing downward through deep water.… Could it possibly be that sort of thing in the year eighteen hundred and ninety-nine?’
The most compelling and horrific strand of the story is the revelation that it is indeed ‘that sort of thing.’ After a long conversation with Melville in which Chatteris tries hard to convince himself that he can cast off the enchantment of the sea lady and return to his fiancé and his dawning political career, he instead flees with her, carrying her to the beach and into the sea. Melville’s horrified thoughts of ‘what must have happened’ complete the portrait of a cruel sea-queen:
.Did he look back, I wonder? They swam together for a little while, the man and the sea goddess who had come for him, with the sky above them and the water about them all, warmly filled with the moonlight and set with shining stars. It was no time for him to think of truth, nor of the honest duties he had left behind him, as they swam together into the unknown. And of the end I can only guess and dream. Did there come a sudden horror upon him at the last, a sudden perception of infinite error, and was he drawn down, swiftly and terribly, a bubbling repentance, into those unknown deeps? Or was she tender and wonderful to the last, and did she wrap her arms about him and draw him down, down until the soft waters closed above him into a gentle ecstasy of death?’
So liminal are these fantastic and romantic elements of the tale that only the two chief characters, the lady and her victim, and the sub-narrator figure Melville, fully understand what is going on. The society that professes itself so deeply concerned with the needs of the poor exiled sea creature—as they choose to perceive her— willfully denies the reality of her nature and works hopelessly at attempts to integrate her into the late-Victorian middle-class. It is from the incongruities of this behaviour that Wells draws most of his comic irony in the tale; but what remains with the reader is the horror of the Sea Lady’s intentions and the acquiescence of her victim. ‘There were other dreams, there was another existence, an elsewhere’ she tells Melville, yet the new dream she offers Chatteris is simply to swim out to sea with her, and to drown.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 13, 2024
Treść adekwatna do tej okładki..
November 27, 2025
3.5/5 ⭐️s.
February 23, 2019
Well written, needed more mermaid.
September 10, 2018
To start my low rating DOES NOT look down on how the book is written or the book as a whole but more to show my personal expecations of the book were misled and that having expected so much of Wells due to his other stories I should have realised that if this were the way I expected it, it probably would be popular enough that I'd have heard of it before I magically found it on a charity store bookshelf among the unwanted/unloved novels.
This story itself as a whole is partially dramatic and ends up focusing more on our lives and the boredom of being an upstanding member of the community at all times (back in those days) compared with the dark, beautiful side of life that we know in the back of our minds will not end well but we still hunger for.
I expected this to be an amazingly fantastical book about some kind of evil mermaid who would lure or kill some of the men back to the water or some magical back story to how she lived underwater. I expected to see how she surived, learn about how she ticks. Learn more about mermaids! But what I actually learnt was that the characters in this book where barely used except the main few and that I still don't understand why a cousin of a friend of the family is the narrator for this book.
I will never read this again but do not let me spoil it for you if you are intrested. Yes the book is written well, yes there is a great lesson to be learnt here about not always choosing the path thats more exciting as opposed to the path that is safer but it is just not what I wanted from this book.
This story itself as a whole is partially dramatic and ends up focusing more on our lives and the boredom of being an upstanding member of the community at all times (back in those days) compared with the dark, beautiful side of life that we know in the back of our minds will not end well but we still hunger for.
I expected this to be an amazingly fantastical book about some kind of evil mermaid who would lure or kill some of the men back to the water or some magical back story to how she lived underwater. I expected to see how she surived, learn about how she ticks. Learn more about mermaids! But what I actually learnt was that the characters in this book where barely used except the main few and that I still don't understand why a cousin of a friend of the family is the narrator for this book.
I will never read this again but do not let me spoil it for you if you are intrested. Yes the book is written well, yes there is a great lesson to be learnt here about not always choosing the path thats more exciting as opposed to the path that is safer but it is just not what I wanted from this book.
July 10, 2021
This book, like its eponymous character, is an odd hybrid. At first, the appearance of a mermaid and her entree into intimacy with the family who "rescued" her (she pretended to be drowning) is used for light social satire about class and fitting in. Even a tail need not be an obstacle to social success, if it is discreetly concealed, what is visible is sufficiently beautiful, and (perhaps most importantly) the person in question is sufficiently wealthy. More serious aspects of various merfolk stories begin to fold in, though, from echoes of the Sirens to intimations of Andersen's Little Mermaid and her quest for a soul. By the end of the book, the Sea Lady has become more of an ambiguous symbol of the unknown/transcendent: does it lead to death or to some sort of better state of being than the one of hidebound convention? The book leaves us wondering. Does Chatteris, who ends up going off with the mermaid, end up drowning or somehow transformed? We don't know. Which possibility we prefer probably speaks as more to our own sensibilities than it does to Wells's agenda. A critical edition of this book, with an introduction and notes, would be very useful.
July 14, 2019
The novel by H. G. Wells does not get as much recognition as many of his other works. I can see why; after finishing it I almost gave it two stars.
It is a humorous take on the mermaid motif, and her dangerous lusting after a mortal man. She enters the life of a seaside family by pretending she has a cramp, and has to be rescued. It's only after pulling her out of the water that they see she has a tail.
I did like it in places, but I felt that overall the story felt a little half baked, like Wells didn't really think it through well enough. It lacked something. Like one reviewer said: there is not enough mermaid. And it's true; there's a lot of focus on the other characters. The mermaid, named Miss Waters, seems to be more of a catalyst than a main character.
But the reason that It squeaked by with three stars, was that it had just enough mystery and enchantment that appear whenever watery mythological spirits are involved. The story stuck with me after I finished it, proving that Wells will always be a master storyteller, even in his lesser works.
It is a humorous take on the mermaid motif, and her dangerous lusting after a mortal man. She enters the life of a seaside family by pretending she has a cramp, and has to be rescued. It's only after pulling her out of the water that they see she has a tail.
I did like it in places, but I felt that overall the story felt a little half baked, like Wells didn't really think it through well enough. It lacked something. Like one reviewer said: there is not enough mermaid. And it's true; there's a lot of focus on the other characters. The mermaid, named Miss Waters, seems to be more of a catalyst than a main character.
But the reason that It squeaked by with three stars, was that it had just enough mystery and enchantment that appear whenever watery mythological spirits are involved. The story stuck with me after I finished it, proving that Wells will always be a master storyteller, even in his lesser works.
April 29, 2018
A very well written book, comes at a time of endless possibility and wonder and finding new sea creatures, previously unheard of, or, a part of myth. In parts of this book, I couldn’t help seeing a resemblance to the movie ‘Splash’. In parts it was long and drawn out, looks at a first contact situation, how society looks at an outsider, and similarly the outsider tries to rationalise and understand life, purely based on shipwrecks and what falls to to bottom of the ocean. A rather witty moment regarding cigarettes.
Over a period of time, like with other authors whom you read a lot of there works, you get to pick up certain little repeating themes, in this case H G Wells and his affinity with Folkestone.
Over a period of time, like with other authors whom you read a lot of there works, you get to pick up certain little repeating themes, in this case H G Wells and his affinity with Folkestone.
January 21, 2014
I thoroughly enjoyed this. It was funny, and interesting, and dark. I find myself wondering whether I've ever actually read anything by Wells, because I always, in the back of my head, kinda suspected I didn't really like him very much as an author. But now I may have to reconsider. It's possible that I was just traumatized by watching War of the Worlds at too young an age (and then re-traumatized by that awful Island of Dr. Moreau with Val Kilmer), and never gave Wells' writing a chance.
November 23, 2023
A quaint little 1902 tale from H G Wells.
In a similar vain to The Wonderful Visit whereby an otherwordly character is brought in as a vehicle to comment on the social more of the time.
In this instance it is a mermaid.
While initially it seems she is rescued due to cramp,this is just a foil by the mermaid to try and snag Chatteris, a man who she has observed from the sea in the past.
She is rescued and then comments on the narrowness of society in regards life and relationships.
She ,like the sirens of myth, whispers to Chatteris,and encourages him to dream of a better life of pleasure,to make his dream a reality and follow her into the sea.
This causes a great dilemma for Chatteris because he is engaged already and has a political career all mapped out for him.
A slight tale by Wells which can be read in a day or two,but never the less,an entertaining tale and well worth reading as a lesser Wells novel.
In a similar vain to The Wonderful Visit whereby an otherwordly character is brought in as a vehicle to comment on the social more of the time.
In this instance it is a mermaid.
While initially it seems she is rescued due to cramp,this is just a foil by the mermaid to try and snag Chatteris, a man who she has observed from the sea in the past.
She is rescued and then comments on the narrowness of society in regards life and relationships.
She ,like the sirens of myth, whispers to Chatteris,and encourages him to dream of a better life of pleasure,to make his dream a reality and follow her into the sea.
This causes a great dilemma for Chatteris because he is engaged already and has a political career all mapped out for him.
A slight tale by Wells which can be read in a day or two,but never the less,an entertaining tale and well worth reading as a lesser Wells novel.
January 25, 2025
https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/the-sea-lady-by-h-g-wells/
A short satirical piece by Wells from 1902. His first twenty books were published between 1895 and 1912, and this was the only one that I had not yet read. A mermaid washes ashore between Folkestone and Hythe (weirdly enough, I spent two nights at Hythe last November), and the local Liberal candidate falls in love with her. There is much comedy of manners (though the book is only 100 pages long).
I suspect that Wells was reflecting on his own experience of his love life interfering with his political activities. Several of his earlier books (most notably The New Machiavelli) include elections, but it wasn’t until 1922 and 1923 that he put himself forward (for the London University constituency; he came third out of three candidates both times).
A short satirical piece by Wells from 1902. His first twenty books were published between 1895 and 1912, and this was the only one that I had not yet read. A mermaid washes ashore between Folkestone and Hythe (weirdly enough, I spent two nights at Hythe last November), and the local Liberal candidate falls in love with her. There is much comedy of manners (though the book is only 100 pages long).
I suspect that Wells was reflecting on his own experience of his love life interfering with his political activities. Several of his earlier books (most notably The New Machiavelli) include elections, but it wasn’t until 1922 and 1923 that he put himself forward (for the London University constituency; he came third out of three candidates both times).
February 2, 2022
3.75
Starts out pretty dry (pun unintended), with too much focus on social satire, favouring narration over dialogue and seemingly irrelevant scenarios. Too many characters are introduced at once with similar names, and it can be a little hard to keep track.
The second half really won me over though. More attention is given to the Sea Lady and her motives become more apparent. Some of her talk, addressing mortality from her immortal perspective and criticising the things humans waste their lives on, is compelling. Stakes crank up and some of the conversations surrounding the absurdity of the climactic scenario had me chortling aloud.
The ending pages see Wells indulging more in the parts of him I love: dark wit, profound speeches, and descriptive but cleanly constructed prose.
Starts out pretty dry (pun unintended), with too much focus on social satire, favouring narration over dialogue and seemingly irrelevant scenarios. Too many characters are introduced at once with similar names, and it can be a little hard to keep track.
The second half really won me over though. More attention is given to the Sea Lady and her motives become more apparent. Some of her talk, addressing mortality from her immortal perspective and criticising the things humans waste their lives on, is compelling. Stakes crank up and some of the conversations surrounding the absurdity of the climactic scenario had me chortling aloud.
The ending pages see Wells indulging more in the parts of him I love: dark wit, profound speeches, and descriptive but cleanly constructed prose.
December 7, 2023
A long meandering comedy of manners about a family that takes in a mermaid and the attempts she makes to find a suitable man. It really didn't engage me until the very end. Then I was excited with how he presented the conclusion. This is similar to how I felt about Wells's Invisible Man. I wasn't into it and then the ending happened and i was into it. I guess he keeps the power until the last few pages.
June 24, 2025
During the first half of this book I was bored, but was very interested by the philosophical concepts brought into the back half. I still am unsure whether I agree with the decision Chatteris made to go with the Sea Lady into the abyss, and I feel like of all the books I’ve read so far this year, this is the one I’d want to discuss with another reader the most.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
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