A Mad, Wicked Folly

Biggs Waller, Sharon. A Mad, Wicked Folly. 2014. 448p. ISBN 978-0-670-01468-2. FIC BIG on the library shelves.

Victoria Darling loves art, and wishes more than anything else that she could become an artist whose paintings hang on walls of exhibits. She’s worked hard at learning her craft, but in the year 1909 women don’t enjoy many of the same rights as men. Being of the upper class, Victoria is not free to do as she pleases but must bow to the wishes of her parents.

When her father finds out she’s been posing nude in an atelier in France, she’s put back on the next boat and sent home, where her art supplies and tools are confiscated. From now on, Victoria must apply herself to redeem her social rank and prepare for marriage.

But when she encounters Police Constable William Fletcher during a Suffragette demonstration, she is forced to make a stark choice: her art, or the financial security of a loveless arranged marriage. Arrested during the demonstration but freed thanks to PC Fletcher’s testimony, Victoria must now hide her desires from her parents. She still pursues an application to the Royal College of Art, but must do so while insuring that no one will know.

So Victoria hides her true activities from her mother, her father, and even her fiancé, whom she thought would be more supportive. Aided by her lady’s companion Sophia, and by a suffragette named Lucy, Victoria decides that Will and Art, after all, is worth more than what her father can offer her.

Historically accurate, this novel superimposes Victoria’s struggles on the larger women’s rights movement of the early decades of the 20th century, and, as society is evolving, so must attitudes towards women. The men in this book, aside from PC Fletcher, hold antiquated notions of womanhood, and frown upon Victoria’s choice of pursuing art, arguing that she should be a wife and a mother and nothing more. But Victoria’s drive and dedication eventually earns her the respect of her peers, if not of her family.