Judah is sent to the Roman galleys for life his mother and sister are imprisoned and all the family property is confiscated. During a military parade, a tile falls from the roof of Judah's house and barely misses the Roman governor.Īlthough Messala knows that they are not guilty, he condemns the Ben-Hur family.

Judah's childhood friend Messala returns home as an ambitious commanding officer of the Roman legions. Zimbalist hired a number of screenwriters to cut the story. It was published on Novemby Harper & Brothers.

The story recounts the adventures of Judah Ben-Hur, a Jewish prince and merchant in Jerusalem in the 1st century. Lew Wallace's 1880 novel, Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ, ran to about 550 pages. Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ is an historical novel by Lew Wallace. Lewis 'Lew' Wallace (Ap February 15, 1905) was an American lawyer, Union general in the American Civil War, governor of the New Mexico Territory, politician, diplomat, and author from Indiana. Lew Wallace (1827–1905) was an American lawyer, Union general in the American Civil War, territorial governor and statesman, politician, and author.Ĭonsidered 'the most influential Christian book of the nineteenth century', it was the best-selling American novel from the time of its publication, superseding Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852).įollowing release of the 1959 MGM film adaptation of Ben-Hur, which was seen by tens of millions and won 11 Academy Awards in 1960, book sales surpassed Gone with the Wind. Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ is a novel by Lew Wallace published for the first time in 1880. Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ is a novel by Lew Wallace, published by Harper and Brothers on November 12, 1880, and considered the most influential.

1880 lew wallace novel