WRITING ON THE WALL

'Graffiti and Rebellion in Eighteenth Century Britain', this is an eye-opening new history of Britain's most tumultuous period told through its graffiti. An aristocrat uses the point of his diamond ring to carve a satirical poem into a tavern window. A shopkeeper's daughter sketches her father's clients with a piece of coal. A desperate highwayman, condemned to death, scratches his initials into the door of his cell. 'Would it not be a great pity, that the profound learning and wit of so many illustrious personages, who have favoured the publik with their lubrications in diamond characters upon drinking-glasses, on windows, on walls, and in bog-houses, should be lost to the world?' - Hurlothrumbo, 1731. Here their voices are not lost. The so-called Enlightenment was, in many respects, forged by the inky fingers of seditious printers, loquacious orators and, this book argues, provocative graffitists. Writing on the wall offered a seemingly more inclusive and democratic mode of expression and anyone who could wield a stick of chalk, a coal, pencil or other sharp implement could add their voice to a growing public sphere and drive and define who exactly Britons were and what they stood for. From the back streets of London to the frontiers of Empire here is the process that gave voice to a riotous and shifting society. Here are their thoughts on Romanticism, debating freedom and religion, testifying to their experiences of wars, riots or the Industrial Revolution, by simply saying 'I was here'. Taken together, this remarkable record of human existence in all its honest, grimy and unguarded glory can bring the past to life and give it back its voice. 333pp, well illus. All copies SIGNED BY THE AUTHOR.