Writing on the Wall cover art

Writing on the Wall

Graffiti, Rebellion and the Making of Eighteenth-Century Britain

 Preview
Get this deal Try Premium Plus free
Offer ends 29 January 2026 at 11:59PM GMT.
Prime members: New to Audible? Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Just £0.99/mo for your first 3 months of Audible.
1 bestseller or new release per month—yours to keep.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, podcasts, and Originals.
Auto-renews at £8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically.

Writing on the Wall

By: Madeleine Pelling
Narrated by: Madeleine Pelling
Get this deal Try Premium Plus free

£8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly. Offer ends 29 January 2026 at 11:59PM GMT.

£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £13.99

Buy Now for £13.99

LIMITED TIME OFFER | £0.99/mo for the first 3 months

Premium Plus auto-renews at £8.99/mo after 3 months. Terms apply.

About this listen

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 18th-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.

©2024 Madeleine Pelling (P)2024 Bolinda Publishing Europe Great Britain England Caribbean

Listeners also enjoyed...

 Thou Savage Woman: Female Killers in Early Modern Britain cover art
Great and Horrible News: Murder and Mayhem in Early Modern Britain cover art
Vagabonds cover art
The Once and Future Sex cover art
Why Q Needs U cover art
Eighteen cover art
Vital Organs cover art
Folklore Rising cover art
A History of Britain: Volume 1 cover art
Gentlemen of Uncertain Fortune cover art
Goddess with a Thousand Faces cover art
The Bright Ages cover art
Orphans of Empire cover art
Sex: Lessons From History cover art

Critic 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.' (The Times)
'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 of 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 of 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)
All stars
Most relevant
Maddy Pelling is a wonderful podcaster and author. This book takes a deep dive into the history and reasons behind why people in the eighteenth century decided to leave their marks on the walls. Maddy paints vivid pictures that brings the words on the walls to life.

Excellent

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
As somebody who enjoys Pelling’s work from after dark, and whose love of past graffiti was borne from many hours in Lincoln cathedral, the unexpected (though perhaps not shocking) overlap was obviously something I had to check out. As somebody who often struggles with voices, Madeleine’s delivery was wonderful, being informative without being too stuffy.

Fascinating look into a lesser spoken on part of history

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Here i sit bored as hell waiting for the f****** bell.

That was a piece of graffiti i always remembered from when I was at school written onto a desk.

Well this is quite apt for this book. It is utterly boring.

I love history books for which I read a lot of and are strewn across my huge bookshelf but this is the worst I have ever read.

I learnt about this book from one of the best podcasts ever alongside Gone Medieval and Not Just The Tudors. Maddy Pelling does After Dark Podcast with co host Anthony Delaney and it's fantastic.

I went on to research the book via Maddy's interviews on various podcasts and this sounded so unique and very interesting and because I think Maddy is brilliant I bought the book on Audible as Maddy's voice is wonderful too but I just couldn't get on with this. It's nothing like the verbal blurb of her interviews. It's just really boring dense storytelling on history.

As i said i love history but it's not told with any excitement whatsoever and the graffiti subject is minute buried in the density of the boring history telling.

Do check out her podcast though! It's amazing!

Here I Sit Bored As Hell Waiting For The F****** Bell.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.