Rebecca Gowers

Rebecca Gowers has written two novels, both longlisted for the Orange Prize (now the Women’s Prize for Fiction). In 2014 she became the fourth editor to revise and update Plain Words, the classic guide to English usage by her great-grandfather Sir Ernest Gowers, after which she wrote her own satirical companion volume, Horrible Words, both published by Penguin. She has also written two works of non-fiction inspired by family archive materials. Each is focussed on the cultural ramifications of a Victorian murder case that happened to involve one of her forebears, in the first case as the principal witness; in the second, as the victim. The Swamp of Death, about a grisly 1890 murder in the Canadian backwoods, was shortlisted for a Crime Writers’ Association Golden Dagger award, and was serialised on Radio 4, while The Scoundrel Harry Larkyns and his Pitiless Killing by the Photographer Eadweard Muybridge was shortlisted for a Historical Writers’ Association Golden Crown award. She recently appeared in the feature documentary Exposing Muybridge along with Muybridge aficionado Gary Oldman.