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Writing on the Wall
Graffiti and Rebellion in Eighteenth-Century Britain
Brief Description
What if walls could talk? For historian Madeleine Pelling, they can β 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,...
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Writing on the Wall
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Hear the voices of the eighteenth century: an eye-opening new history of Britain's most tumultuous period, told through its graffiti
Hear the voices of the eighteenth century: an eye-opening new history of Britain's most tumultuous period, told through its graffiti
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Description
What if walls could talk? For historian Madeleine Pelling, they can β 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 β 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.
Book Details
INFORMATION
ISBN: 9781800812000
Publisher: Profile Books Ltd
Format: Paperback / softback
Date Published: 03 April 2025
Country: United Kingdom
Imprint: Profile Books Ltd
Edition: Main
Illustration: 3-5 integrated images per chapter
Audience: General / adult
DIMENSIONS
Spine width: 24.0mm
Width: 128.0mm
Height: 198.0mm
Weight: 284g
Pages: 352
About the Author
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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