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 true intention is to seduce Harry Chatteris, a man she saw "some years ago" in "the
South Seas—near
Tonga" and who has since captivated her. She reveals this plan in a conversation with the narrator's second cousin Melville, a friend of the family who takes in "Miss Waters." As a
supernatural being, she is indifferent to the fact that Chatteris is engaged to the socially ambitious Miss Adeline Glendower and is attempting to redeem his misspent 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, even though succumbing to her supposedly means his death. Couched in the language of fantasy and romance, blending with light-hearted
social satire,
The Sea Lady explores themes of
nature,
sex, the
imagination, and
the ideal in an
Edwardian world where
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." In its narrative structure,
The Sea Lady plays 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."
Adam Roberts has argued that
The Sea Lady was written in a kind of dialogue with James's
The Sacred Fount (1901). == Cultural references ==