H. G. Wells 
The Sea Lady 

The Sea Lady is a fantasy novel 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. 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.