Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ, Complete and Unabridged

Product Information

A larger-than-life limestone frieze of the face of Judah Ben-Hur—a wholly imagined visage—hovers over the entrance to the General Lew Wallace Study and Museum in Crawfordsville, Indiana.

Wallace wrote the manuscript for Ben-Hur, his second and best-known novel, during his spare time at Crawfordsville, and completed it in Santa Fe, while serving as the territorial governor of New Mexico. [125] [126] Ben-Hur, an adventure story of revenge and redemption, is told from the perspective of a Jewish nobleman named Judah Ben-Hur. [127] Because Wallace had not been to the Holy Land before writing the book, he began research to familiarize himself with the area's geography and its history at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., in 1873. [126] Harper and Brothers published the book on November 12, 1880. [128] With the outbreak of the Civil War Lewis "Lew" Wallace was a lawyer, governor, Union general in the American Civil War, American statesman, and author, best remembered for his historical novel Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ. The book was not an immediate success, but within two years it had gained momentum. The same morning President Garfield finished reading it, he wrote a thank-you note to Wallace, and within the month offered him the ambassadorship to Turkey. Ulysses S. Grant confessed he was so absorbed with the story, he read it for thirty hours straight. Fans from around the world wrote to Wallace, recounting their own conversions with Ben-Hur—this one became a missionary, that one claimed the book saved his life. Wallace became so closely linked with Ben-Hur that he no longer went by General, but was referred to as Lew Wallace, author of Ben-Hur. In newspaper articles and at speaking engagements, he was sometimes just called Ben-Hur. The day of the race comes. During the race, Messala and Judah become clear leaders. Messala deliberately scrapes his chariot wheel against Judah's, causing Messala's chariot to break apart. He is trampled by other racers' horses. Judah is crowned the winner and showered with prizes, claiming his first strike against Rome. Messala is left with a broken body and the loss of his wealth. Let the reader try to fancy it; let him first look down on the arena, and see it glistening in its frame of dull-gray granite walls; let him then, in this perfect field, see the chariots, light of wheel, very graceful, and ornate as paint and burnishing can make them ... let the reader see the accompanying shadows fly; and, with such distinctness as the picture comes, he may share the satisfaction and deeper pleasure of those to whom it was a thrilling fact, not a feeble fancy. [1] [55] Wallace's religious beliefs [ edit ]

1907 Movie

Boomhower, Ray E. (2005). The Sword and the Pen. Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Society Press. ISBN 0-87195-185-1. Wallace's adventure story is told from the perspective of Judah Ben-Hur. [4] On occasion, the author speaks directly to his readers. [6] Wallace understood that Christians would be skeptical of a fictional story on Christ's life, so he was careful not to offend them in his writing. Ben-Hur "maintains a respect for the underlying principles of Judaism and Christianity". [1] In his memoirs, Wallace wrote: In 1832 the family moved to Covington, Indiana, where Lew's mother died from tuberculosis on July 14, 1834. [6] In December 1836, David married nineteen-year-old Zerelda Gray Sanders Wallace, who later became a prominent suffragist and temperance advocate. In 1837, after David's election as governor of Indiana, the family moved to Indianapolis. [7] [8] Lifson, Amy (2009). "Ben-Hur". Humanities. Washington, D.C.: National Endowment for the Humanities. 30 (6). Archived from the original on October 15, 2015 . Retrieved August 27, 2014.

Lew Wallace High School opened in 1926 at 415 West 45th Avenue in Gary, Indiana. On June 3, 2014, the Gary School Board voted 4 to 2 to close Lew Wallace, along with five other schools. [153] Ben-Hur (1925 film) is an MGM silent film starring Ramon Novarro; it premiered in New York City on December 20, 1925. [91] Since its first publication, Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ has never been out of print. It outsold every book except the Bible until Gone With the Wind came out in 1936, and resurged to the top of the list again in the 1960s. By 1900 it had been printed in thirty-six English-language editions and translated into twenty others, including Indonesian and Braille. Messala sends a letter to Valerius Gratus about his discovery of Judah, but Sheik Ilderim intercepts the letter and shares it with Judah. He discovers that his mother and sister were imprisoned in a cell at the Antonia Fortress, and Messala has been spying on him. Meanwhile, Ilderim is deeply impressed with Judah's skills with his racing horses and accepts him as his charioteer. A day before the race, Ilderim prepares his horses. Judah appoints Malluch to organize his support campaign for him. Meanwhile, Messala organizes his own huge campaign, revealing Judah Ben-Hur's former identity to the community as an outcast and convict. Malluch challenges Messala and his cronies to a large wager, which, if the Roman loses, would bankrupt him.

Lawsuit

a b c d e f g h i Amy Lifson (2009). "Ben-Hur: The Book That Shook the World". Humanities. Washington D.C.: National Endowment for the Humanities. 30 (6) . Retrieved April 11, 2017. a b Espiner, Mark (2009-09-14). "Ben Hur Live leaves little to the imagination". guardian.co.uk. Guardian News and Media . Retrieved 2009-09-18. By the time of Ben-Hur 's publication in 1880, Wallace had already published his first novel, The Fair God; or, The Last of the 'Tzins (1873), and Commodus: An Historical Play (1876) that was never produced. He went on to publish several more novels and biographies, including The Prince of India; or, Why Constantinople Fell (1893), a biography of President Benjamin Harrison in 1888, and The Wooing of Malkatoon (1898), but Ben-Hur remained his most significant work and best-known novel. [38] [39] Humanities editor Amy Lifson named Ben-Hur as the most influential Christian book of the 19th century, while others have identified it as one of the best-selling novels of all time. [1] [40] Carl Van Doren wrote that Ben-Hur was, along with Uncle Tom's Cabin, the first fiction many Americans read. [6] Wallace's original plan was to write a story of the biblical magi as a magazine serial, which he began in 1873, but he had changed its focus by 1874. [41] Ben-Hur begins with the story of the magi, but the remainder of the novel connects the story of Christ with the adventures of Wallace's fictional character, Judah Ben-Hur. [4] [5] Influences [ edit ] Commodus: An Historical Play (Crawfordsville, IN: privately published by the author, 1876.) Revised and reissued in the same year. [161] The election of Grover Cleveland, the Democratic candidate for president, ended Wallace's political appointment. He resigned from the U.S. diplomatic service on March 4, 1885. [119] The sultan wanted Wallace to continue to work in the Ottoman Empire, and even made a proposal to have him represent Ottoman interests in England or France, but Wallace declined and returned home to Crawfordsville. [119] [120] Writing career [ edit ]

Judah Ben-Hur is a Jewish prince of Jerusalem who is descended from a royal family of Judaea, son of Ithamar, [9] enslaved by the Romans, and later becomes a charioteer and follower of Christ. (See article Judah Ben-Hur for a discussion of the name etymology.) In another familiar Biblical scene, on the banks of the Jordan, where John the Baptist blesses Jesus, we see the scene through the eyes of Ben-Hur, who is suspicious of the unwashed, unkempt John and also of a supposed king dressed as a modest rabbi and covered in dust. “Despite his familiarity with the ascetic colonists in En-Gedi—their dress, their indifference to all worldly opinion, their constancy to vows which gave them over to every imaginable suffering of body . . . still Ben-Hur’s dream of the King who was to be so great and do so much had colored all his thought of him.” Like many, he expected to see heralds and courtiers like those in Rome and was confused by what was actually in front of him. Balthasar, an Egyptian, is one of the biblical magi, along with Melchior, a Hindu, and Gaspar, a Greek, who came to Bethlehem to witness the birth of Jesus of Nazareth. [24] Ben-Hur is a story of a fictional hero named Judah Ben-Hur, a Jewish nobleman who was falsely accused and convicted of an attempted assassination of the Roman governor of Judaea and consequently enslaved by the Romans. He becomes a successful charioteer. [4] [5] The story's revenge plot becomes a story of compassion and forgiveness. [6]After witnessing the Crucifixion, Judah recognizes that Christ's life stands for a goal quite different from revenge. Judah becomes Christian, inspired by love and the talk of keys to a kingdom greater than any on Earth. The novel concludes with Judah's decision to finance the Catacomb of San Calixto in Rome, where Christian martyrs are to be buried and venerated. [6] [7] Detailed synopsis [ edit ] Part One [ edit ]

If Early had been but one day earlier, he might have entered the capital before the arrival of the reinforcements I had sent.... General Wallace contributed on this occasion by the defeat of the troops under him, a greater benefit to the cause than often falls to the lot of a commander of an equal force to render by means of a victory. [96] Later military service [ edit ]

In 1848 Wallace met Susan Arnold Elston at the Crawfordsville home of Henry Smith Lane, Wallace's former commander during the Mexican War. [22] Susan was the daughter of Major Isaac Compton Elston, a wealthy Crawfordsville merchant, and Maria Akin Elston, whose family were Quakers from upstate New York. [23] Susan accepted Wallace's marriage proposal in 1849, and they were married in Crawfordsville on May 6, 1852. [24] The Wallaces had one son, Henry Lane Wallace, who was born on February 17, 1853. [25] Early law and military career [ edit ] Carole Carlson (June 3, 2014). "Gary to Close Lew Wallace, Five Other Schools". Post-Tribune. Gary, Indiana: Sun-Times Media, LLC. Archived from the original on October 25, 2014 . Retrieved August 24, 2014.