H. G. Wells 3 hr 6 min read

A beautiful mermaid comes ashore among the respectable seaside society of Edwardian England, and sets her sights on a rising young politician, luring him away from his proper life and fiancée.

H. G. Wells's 1902 novel is a wry, melancholy fantasy of enchantment and desire. Ironic, wistful, beautifully told. Read it for a subtler Wells, a sea-lady's arrival among the well-mannered English seaside gentry as a sly, poignant fable of longing, respectability, and the fatal pull of the impossible.

In its time

Published in 1902, during the 1900s, the scientific romance.

Reading it

3 hr 6 min read (a novel-length work, settle in).

Illustrated by

Lewis Christopher Edward Baumer