Writing on the Wall

Graffiti, Rebellion and the Making of Eighteenth-Century Britain

Madeleine Pelling

• Publisher: Profile Books
• Year: 2024
• eBook ISBN: 9781800812017
• Edition: 0
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Early Modern History
• Index: History

'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.' The Times What if walls could talk? For historian Madeleine Pelling, they can - if you know where to look. A brilliant new cultural history of the long eighteenth century, Writing on the Wall is told through the marks its citizens left behind, bringing into focus lost voices from the highest to the lowest in society. From the centre of London to the islands of the Caribbean, Pelling goes in search of graffiti, evidence of how ordinary people experienced the world-changing events that defined their lives - from political prisoners to sex workers, homesick sailors, Romantic poets and the artisans of the industrial revolution. Here are lives, loves, triumphs and failures, scratched into the walls of prisons and latrines, chalked up on doors and etched into windows. The names of their creators may be lost to history, but together they tell the real story of Britain's most rebellious and transformative century.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• A Note on the Text
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Introduction: Lost Voices
• Outlining Britain: c.1688–1740
• Crossing Lines: c.1740–1780
• Sketching Freedom: c.1780–1800
• Conclusion: The Writing on the Wall
• Index
• Acknowledgements