Includes bibliographical references (pages 237-239)

The revolutionary Rose Dugdale -- The reluctant debutante -- A weird orchid among daisies -- A Soixante-Huitard -- Graduation -- The cause -- Wally -- Stealing home -- Enter Eddie -- The bombing at Strabane -- The intersection -- The guitar player -- The French visitor -- Proudly and incorruptibly guilty -- A new life on the inside -- Love and marriage -- The afterlife -- Epilogue.

In the history of major art heists, that outlier is Rose Dugdale. Dugdale's life is singularly notorious. Born into extreme wealth, she abandoned her life as an Oxford-trained PhD and heiress to join the cause of Irish Republicanism. While on the surface she appears to be the British version of Patricia Hearst, she is anything but. Dugdale ran head first towards the action, spearheading the first aerial terrorist attack in British history and pulling off the biggest art theft of her time. In 1974, she led a gang into the opulent Russborough House in Ireland and made off with millions in prized paintings, including works by Goya, Gainsborough, and Rubens, as well as Lady Writing a Letter with her Maid by the mysterious master Johannes Vermeer. Dugdale thus became -- to this day -- the only woman to pull off a major art heist. And as Anthony Amore explores in The Woman Who Stole Vermeer, it's likely that this was not her only such heist. This is Rose Dugdale's story, from her idyllic upbringing in Devonshire and her presentation to Elizabeth II as a debutante to her university years and her eventual radical lifestyle.