Other editions of book The Sea Fairies Illustrated

Nobody, said Cap'n Bill solemnly, "ever sawr a mermaid an' lived to tell the tale." "Why not?" asked Trot, looking earnestly up into the old sailor's face. They were seated on a bench built around a giant acacia tree that grew just at the edge of the bluff. Below them rolled the blue waves of the great Pacific. A little way behind them was the house, a neat frame cottage painted white and surrounded by huge eucalyptus and pepper trees. Still farther behind that - a quarter of a mile distant but built upon a bend of the coast - was the village, overlooking a pretty bay.

Young Trot and the old captain, peg-legged Cap'n Bill, might seem like odd friends, but they are constant companions and Cap'n Bill taught her to love and appreciate the ocean. Trot was especially fascinated by the idea of mermaids and talked about them often with Cap'n Bill, who warned that no one who had met a mermaid had ever lived to tell the tale. One day while out sailing around, the pair is greeted by a beautiful mermaid who extends an invitation for them to come and visit their underwater kingdom and even become mermaids themselves for the adventure. Trot and Cap'n Bill meet a wonderful variety of characters along their underwater adventure - eels and codfish and crabs, among others. After a marvelous and exciting time with the mermaids, the only mystery left is whether or not they will be the first to live to tell the tale of meeting the mermaids! L. Frank Baum (1856-1919) was an American author of children's books, most famous for his The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Baum wrote 13 sequels to his first Oz book and still has a huge fan base to this day. Trot and Cap'n Bill also appear in other books by Baum, outside of their underwater adventures!

As an underwater fantasy, Baum's The Sea Fairies can be classed with earlier books with similar themes, like Charles Kingsley's The Water-Babies (1863), and successors too, like E. Nesbit's Wet Magic (1913). Baum's novel has no relation to the 1830 poem of the same name by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. In 1905, however, a musical setting of Tennyson's poem for female chorus and orchestra, composed by Amy Beach, was in performance; the title may have stuck in the back of Baum's mind.