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Dr Madeleine Pelling is a historian, writer and broadcaster, specialising in British history c. 1600-1900. She holds a PhD from the University of York, and her first book, Writing on the Wall: Graffiti, Rebellion and the Making of Eighteenth-Century Britain, is out with Profile Books in March 2024. Madeleine's words appear in The Guardian, The Independent, BBC History Magazine and History Today, and she is a presenter and expert contributor for television and podcasts made by broadcasters including Channel 4, Warner Bros and History Hit.


Writing on the Wall: Graffiti, Rebellion and the Making of Eighteenth-Century Britain
Profile Books
OUT 24 MARCH 2024 - Pre-Order HERE
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.
"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 seems and clung to the topsail yards." -- Dan Snow

Television, Podcasts & Magazines
Madeleine is a regular expert contributor for television and co-host of an exciting new podcast launching in October 2023 (details coming soon!). Her words appear in The Guardian, The Independent, BBC History Magazine and History Today. To enquire about her availability for you project, please click here


















Literary Enquiries
For all literary enquiries, please contact Charlotte Merritt at Andrew Nurnberg Associates
Media, Consultancy & Talks
For all media enquiries, including consultancy, please email madeleinepelling@gmail.com