Rebecca Gowers worked as a freelance journalist and reviewer for a wide range of newspapers and magazines, including the Guardian and the Independent, before doing graduate research at Oxford on the literature of Victorian police detectives. Her short story 'A Small Room' was published in NEW WRITING 4 in 1995. THE SWAMP OF DEATH was published in 2004. Both Rebecca's first novel, WHEN TO WALK, and her second, THE TWISTED HEART, were long-listed for the Orange Prize for Fiction. PLAIN WORDS: A GUIDE TO THE USE OF ENGLISH, first published by her great-grandfather in 1948, has been revised and updated by Rebecca and was published by Particular Books in March 2014, and a follow-up, HORRIBLE WORDS: A GUIDE TO THE MISUSE OF ENGLISH, was published by Particular Books in March 2016.
Her non-fiction book, THE SCOUNDREL HARRY LARKYNS AND HIS PITILESS KILLING BY THE PHOTOGRAPHER EADWEARD MUYBRIDGE, was published by Weidenfeld & Nicholson in November 2019.
