Overview

What if walls could talk? For historian Madeleine Pelling, they can - if you know where to look An aristocrat carves obscenities into a tavern window with his diamond ring. A shopkeeper's daughter sketches customers with a piece of coal. A desperate highwayman, condemned to death, scratches his initials into his prison cell door. Writing on the Wall goes in search of the hidden voices of Britain's most rebellious and transformative era - a time when anyone in possession of a sharp point and ready surface could find their voice and immortalise their message. Through the marks made by ordinary people, scratched into walls, doors, windows and more, Madeleine Pelling brings the lost stories of the past to life in all their unguarded glory.

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9781800812000

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Reviews

Fascinating ... not only a history of graffiti, but also a history of the 18th century through lost voices of the people who lived through it. -- Paula Byrne * The Times * You've read the Austen and seen the Gainsboroughs, well this is the real Eighteenth Century in the words of those who walked the streets, worked the coal seams and clung to the topsail yards. -- Dan Snow From the ingenious starting point of a humble scratch on glass or daub on brick, Madeleine Pelling crafts a rich and complex portrait of a society in transition -- Jacqueline Riding, author * Hogarth: A Life in Progress * An erudite, dazzling and thought-provoking study of the graffiti of the period - be its creator Romantic poet or Jacobite, King Mob or Caribbean prisoner of war, Pelling teases out lost narratives with humanity and flair -- Flora Fraser, author * Pretty Young Rebel * An extraordinary history of ordinary people. In this original and impressive study of eighteenth-century graffiti, Pelling foregrounds the protestors, prisoners, rebels and romantics who all left their unique mark on the past -- Hannah Grieg, historian and consultant on 'Bridgerton' and 'The Favourite'

Fascinating ... not only a history of graffiti, but also a history of the 18th century through lost voices of the people who lived through it. -- Paula Byrne * The Times * A wonderful , vibrant account of how ordinary citizens have carved , scratched , and scribbled their messages across the surfaces of our cities for centuries . It's given me a much broader idea of what is probably the most democratic form of writing we have , but which we tend to dismiss as either bad manners or subversive behaviour ... Madeleine Pelling uses it to open up the lives of people whose voices otherwise went unheard . -- Susie Dent * Daily Mail * You've read the Austen and seen the Gainsboroughs, well this is the real Eighteenth Century in the words of those who walked the streets, worked the coal seams and clung to the topsail yards. -- Dan Snow From the ingenious starting point of a humble scratch on glass or daub on brick, Madeleine Pelling crafts a rich and complex portrait of a society in transition -- Jacqueline Riding, author * Hogarth: A Life in Progress * An erudite, dazzling and thought-provoking study of the graffiti of the period - be its creator Romantic poet or Jacobite, King Mob or Caribbean prisoner of war, Pelling teases out lost narratives with humanity and flair -- Flora Fraser, author * Pretty Young Rebel * An extraordinary history of ordinary people. In this original and impressive study of eighteenth-century graffiti, Pelling foregrounds the protestors, prisoners, rebels and romantics who all left their unique mark on the past -- Hannah Grieg, historian and consultant on 'Bridgerton' and 'The Favourite'

Author Information

Madeleine Pelling is a cultural historian, author and broadcaster. She holds a PhD from the University of York and has held research fellowships at the universities of Yale, Edinburgh, Manchester. Her first book, Writing on the Wall: Graffiti, Rebellion and the Making of Eighteenth-Century Britain (Profile Books, 2024), tells the stories of immigrants, prisoners of war, debtors, sex workers and rebels in Georgian Britain through the marks they left behind, and offers a new perspective on this tumultuous period of history. Madeleine is co-host of History Hit's After Dark: Myths, Misdeeds and the Paranormal, a podcast that shines a light on the shadier corners of the past and which brings a rigorous historical lens to folklore and true crime. She is also a regular contributor for television, most recently for Titanic in Colour (Channel 4, 2025) Mayhem! Secret Lives of the Georgian Kings (2025), Queens That Changed The World (Channel 4, 2023) and Who Do You Think You Are? Australia (Warner Bros, 2023). Her words appear in The Guardian, The Independent, BBC History Magazine and History Today.

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