In 18^th-century London, Henry Fuseli’s erotic painting The Nightmare is stolen, a beautiful bluestocking strangled and arranged to resemble it, and an innocent young suspect sent to notorious Newgate prison and then to a madhouse. Mary Wollstonecraft, controversial author of the newly published Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) falls in love with Fuseli, and despite the scandals flying about her name (they call her a hyena in petticoats), she vows to bring thief and killer to justice. A failed ménage à trois with Fuseli and wife (more scandal), threats to Mary’s life, a wild chase in and out of a madhouse, and the abduction of Mary’s runaway foster child bring the mad mix of events to a heart-thumping conclusion.