The Sea Lady is a fantasy novel with some of the aspects of a fable; first serialized in 1901 in Pearson's Magazine. 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." Adam Roberts has argued that it was written in a kind of dialogue with James's The Sacred Fount (1901)
