Ben-Hur

by Carol Wallace

  One factor that made Ben-Hur popular was Lew’s evident faith. He wrote about Jesus and his ministry with authentic reverence and brought his readers along with him into the imagined presence of the Lord. Another component was Lew’s devotion to old-fashioned adventure novels. Ben-Hur would not be famous today without the chariot race and the sea battle. The all-out enmity between the old friends Messala and Judah Ben-Hur pulls the plot forward.

  But there was one more element that gave emotional power to Ben-Hur. The pivotal moment in the story, when the hero, Judah Ben-Hur, is launched out of his comfortable Jerusalem boyhood, is an accident. Judah knocks a tile from the roof of the Hur family’s palace and it injures a Roman official. The swift, violent reaction tears apart Judah’s world, separates him from his family, and ultimately turns him into a slave. It’s his longing for reunion that powers the rest of the book—along with his yearning for vengeance.

  This is fiction, of course. Lew Wallace never got close to a Roman galley, and his much-loved wife and son, Henry, formed a happy, united family. But Lew understood grievance and injustice. Judah Ben-Hur’s burning need to right the wrongs of his youth echoed Lew’s lifelong quest to clear his name of a wrongful accusation—the disgrace of Shiloh. Through Judah, he imagined the vengeance he might wreak on his enemies, the spineless military bureaucrats who refused to clear his name. There’s real violence in Ben-Hur, and our devoutly Jewish hero breaks the commandments several times by killing, with great energy. Surely it is Lew’s shame and rage that power Judah Ben-Hur when he cuts recklessly close to Messala’s chariot in the last moments of the famous race. Just as it is Lew’s belief that brings Ben-Hur at the end of the book to reluctantly abandon his plans for violence and accept the way of a different kind of Savior.

  Ben-Hur had to be researched and written in Lew Wallace’s spare time. Amazingly enough, it only took him four years, which were eventful ones for him, as the encounter with Ingersoll had ushered in a new era of Lew’s life. Following the fateful Boys in Blue reunion, Lew took time out from his Crawfordsville legal practice to campaign energetically for Rutherford B. Hayes, and eventually that politicking got him out of Indiana. It was standard practice in those days to reward campaign allies with governmental appointments. Lew evidently came pretty low on the list, because it wasn’t until 1878 that Hayes finally offered him a post, and a pretty shabby one at that: he could, if he chose, become governor of the fractious and violent New Mexico Territory.

  Susan Elston Wallace, also an author

  The salary was small and the job was dangerous: New Mexico was almost lawless in those days, with warring factions of criminals engaged in the Lincoln County War. Worse—for Susan Wallace, anyway—was the primitive nature of Santa Fe, the capital of the territory. But Lew needed an adventure, and Susan was braver than she let on, so the Wallaces occupied the broad, one-story Palacio Real, built in 1610 and not much improved since then. Lew made enemies right away. This was, after all, the gun-toting Wild West, and he was there to restore law and order. The most famous outlaw was Billy the Kid, who threatened to kill General Wallace. Susan was told by a friend that she and Lew should never leave the shutters open at night in rooms where lamps were lit—it was all too likely a disgruntled criminal would take a shot at them.

  And when Lew wasn’t putting Billy the Kid in jail or trying to placate warring factions of cattlemen, he was burning the midnight oil writing Ben-Hur. In fact, he finished the first draft and copied it all out by hand in purple ink. In March of 1880, he took a leave from his office to personally submit the manuscript to Harper & Brothers, the publishing firm, in New York City.

  It was accepted, but with reservations. The Fair God’s modest success and Wallace’s personal prominence tipped the scale, but the publisher was concerned about a novel in which Jesus Christ appeared as a character. No matter how reverent the portrayal, no matter that the author had only given Jesus dialogue that came direct from the Gospels, Harper & Brothers worried that Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ could be seen as blasphemous. Nevertheless, they took the risk, and the book came out on November 12, 1880, in time for Christmas.

  Wallace’s political instincts were sometimes wrong, especially when it came to the Battle of Shiloh, but he had the good sense to send copies of Ben-Hur to some of his friends who now occupied high office. One of them happened to be James Garfield, the president-elect, who promised to read it when he had time. Amazingly enough, he actually followed up, a few months later. The sitting president managed to zip through the 550-page novel in six days and, on the strength of Wallace’s sensitive depiction of the Middle East, offered him a new diplomatic post, as United States minister to the Ottoman Empire. The salary would be three times what Lew was paid in New Mexico.

  It was just as well because sales of Ben-Hur were disappointing—Wallace’s royalties for the first seven months of sales were less than $300. Considering that years had gone into the composition of the novel, those were skimpy earnings. Not long afterward Lew would write to his son, Henry, speculating that combined royalties for The Fair God and Ben-Hur might reach a steady $1,000 per year, if he was lucky.

  But in a way, he wrote his novels as a hobby. Lew’s vivid imagination made his extensive research as lively to him as actual travel. He often said that his characters were living beings to him—they spoke, they acted, they had wills of their own, and while he loved some, others he despised.

  Nowadays we might look at Ben-Hur in another way as well. Knowing what we do about Lew Wallace’s life, we can see how his deepest concerns were written into what turned out to be his masterpiece. Not only his sense of shock and shame about the Battle of Shiloh, but his reverence for women, his idealization of the family, his everlasting worry about money—even his grappling with issues of vengeance and forgiveness. Lew’s formative years were spent as a soldier. Violence was built into his definition of manhood, and he gave that attribute to his hero, Judah Ben-Hur.

  These were the concerns of many other Americans of the era too, and they must have contributed to Ben-Hur’s gradual success. By 1880 the country was groping its way toward reconciliation between North and South, trying to leave behind the bitter legacy of the war, just as Judah Ben-Hur has to accept that Jesus’ leadership will not be one of violence, but of peace and redemption. Also by 1880 the Industrial Age was well under way, and wealth was newly respectable—even glamorous. Lew Wallace wrenched his hero from the comfort of a merchant prince’s palace to the brutality of a Roman galley, then eventually endowed Judah with an unearned fortune—no, two. And in a country where slavery was a fresh memory for too many, a hero who had been a slave gave new—but safely vicarious—insight into horrible conditions.

  As we can see now, Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ had everything: adventure for those seeking entertainment, sentiment for the ladies, a rags-to-riches tale, even romance. Its meticulously researched descriptions brought vibrant images of the Middle East to readers who had never seen a palm tree and never would.

  What set Ben-Hur apart, though, was the quest at the heart of Lew Wallace’s original idea: to come to grips with the divinity of Jesus. The four years of research and writing convinced Lew that agnostic Robert Ingersoll was wrong. Lew believed, and Ben-Hur shows it. The Nativity scene and the Crucifixion scene were the work of a convinced Christian. Writing them as part of a larger fiction was an enormous risk, and readers were at first prepared to be shocked. But Wallace’s sincerity shone through. No offense to the pious was meant, and none could be taken.

  Lew Wallace’s sketch of the sultan, Abdul Hamid II

  That didn’t mean that the critics liked the book, though. They mocked the stilted language and the old-fashioned plot. Some of the scathing reviews must have stung Lew, and as late as 1883, Ben-Hur had netted him a total of only $2,800 in royalties.

  But by then he had enjoyed several years of a more comfortable income as US minister in Constantinople—and exposure to a more exotic life than the dreamy Indiana schoolboy could ever
have imagined. He and Susan traveled widely in Europe and throughout the Middle East; Lew was even able to check the accuracy of his descriptions in Ben-Hur and happily boasted that he found them all accurate. He managed to foster a cordial relationship with Sultan Abdul Hamid II, ruler of the crumbling Ottoman Empire. It was a satisfying and stimulating interlude, and when the Wallaces returned to the United States, Lew looked forward to a peaceful retirement from the law and the freedom to concentrate on his next novel.

  Instead, his greatest success awaited him, as Ben-Hur caught on. Despite the critics, despite its initially slow sales, the novel found its readers by word of mouth. Literary fashion might have turned toward gritty tales of contemporary society, but Lew’s colorful descriptions of the ancient world beguiled fans—and more fans. More importantly, though, his biggest literary risk had paid off. Taking the bold step of portraying Jesus in a novel could have alienated the churchgoing audience, which was dominant in nineteenth-century America. But instead, those readers were won over. Lew started receiving heartfelt confessional letters from readers who had been touched and moved, whose faith had been renewed by his portrayal of Jesus. Pastors recommended Ben-Hur to their congregations. Many Americans had never read a novel before: fiction was considered not only a waste of time, but worse, a depiction of falsehood. That made most novels morally suspect, but Ben-Hur’s piety and adherence to Christian doctrine put it beyond reproach from a religious point of view.

  Lew Wallace returned from Constantinople in the fall of 1885. Six months later, his portrait was on the cover of the national magazine Harper’s Weekly. For the rest of his life, he would be an American celebrity, one of the first superstar authors.

  It was an amazing change of direction from his low point just ten years earlier. In 1876, when he met Robert Ingersoll on that train, Lew was facing what looked like a joyless future, characterized by the legal work he’d called “abominable” and financial worries he couldn’t escape. Worse, for the ardent adventurer, it had looked as if life’s excitements were over. Soldiers’ reunions seemed likely to provide the thrills from that point on.

  Instead, as the sales of Ben-Hur continued to grow every year, so did the opportunities. Magazines and book publishers would accept anything from Lew’s pen, or his wife, Susan’s, for that matter. He was commissioned to write future president Benjamin Harrison’s campaign biography. Not only did royalties begin rolling in—debts from bad business deals in Mexico were repaid, and Lew could begin saving. He went on lecture tours, speaking to audiences in the thousands. His subjects were “Mexico and the Mexicans,” “Turkey and the Turks, with Glimpses of the Harem,” and of course Ben-Hur. He read the chariot race sequence in Syracuse, New York, to eight thousand people. His tour, which extended for nearly six months, earned him almost $12,000 (close to $300,000 today).

  The sketch Harper’s Weekly used for its cover story about Lew Wallace

  On tour, Lew met an endless stream of readers who wanted to tell him how much Ben-Hur had meant to them. Those who couldn’t meet the author in person wrote to him: alcoholics who gave up drinking, young men who reconciled with their families, skeptics who returned to the churches of their youth. Some readers wanted to let him know that they had found the novel too exciting to put down—Lew’s old nemesis President Grant devoured the book in thirty hours. The publisher Harper & Brothers went back to press again and again, and by 1886, Ben-Hur was a major bestseller. It was the book everyone was talking about. Families read it aloud to each other; it was recommended in Sunday schools; cultured ladies dressed up and performed skits or tableaux inspired by it.

  Before long, Ben-Hur was more than a book. In the 1880s many bestsellers were adapted for the stage. Lew himself, with his taste for the theatrical, had written a play that he’d ended up self-publishing. (He never could get it produced.) Requests for permission to adapt Ben-Hur started to come in as early as 1882, but at first Lew refused them. He was concerned that the reverent tone of his novel might not be preserved—after all, the theater was by definition a more sensational medium than a book. Finally Lew produced a libretto for a production of tableaux that went on to be mounted successfully all over America. A series of painted backdrops were augmented with readings from the novel and brief musical interludes, including an exotic dance sequence.

  But by 1899, stage technology caught up with the scope of Ben-Hur, and negotiations began for a full-blown production that could only be shown in the largest, most sophisticated theaters. Lew, who had managed his money so poorly when he had none, struck a hard bargain, holding out for creative control and the lion’s share of the royalties. He had the upper hand in the negotiations: Ben-Hur was by that point the bestselling novel of the nineteenth century (easily outstripping in twenty years Uncle Tom’s Cabin, which had appeared in 1852). Lew also insisted on an unusual provision: Jesus must never be played by a human. Instead, the Christ would be represented by a powerful beam of light.

  The special effects of the $75,000 Broadway stage production were eye-popping. Scenery consisted of multiple layers of scrims and elaborate constructions. Wrecked ships from the sea battle dropped through traps in the stage floor, and the chariot race took place on a treadmill with real horses. The animals rehearsed for six weeks, and the first to learn how to manage the treadmill was a three-year-old Arabian named Monk, owned by Lew himself. When the production finally closed twenty years later, Monk was the only original cast member still in the show. Charles Frohman, an important transatlantic theatrical producer, sat through one of the final rehearsals and commented as he left that “the American public will never stand for Christ and a horse race in the same show.”

  Of course Frohman was wrong. In fact, he put his finger on exactly the point that made Ben-Hur such a success: the American public could not get enough of Christ and a horse race in the same show. Or, more precisely, Christ and a horse race, portrayed with utter sincerity on the stage as on the page. And while the Broadway production was a great success, it was the road shows that made Ben-Hur a household word. If novels had been considered morally suspect among the strictest religious groups, theater was even more scandalous. Acting—putting oneself on show for money—was thought of as dangerously close to prostitution. Yet because of the inspirational content and the reverent treatment of Christ, Ben-Hur was acceptable. In fact, as with the book, church leaders urged their congregants to see it. Special trains were organized to bring small-town theatergoers to cities where the play was running. By 1904, a production of Ben-Hur was featured at the St. Louis World’s Fair while versions of the chariot race appeared in the Barnum & Bailey Circus and at the Pasadena Tournament of Roses. The theatrical version of Lew’s novel ran for over twenty years in the United States and was seen by an estimated 20 million playgoers.

  Lew Wallace meets with Joseph Brooks and William Young, representatives of the Broadway producers Marc Klaw and A. L. Erlanger

  Naturally that exposure sold a lot of books. Playgoers—or people who’d simply heard about the play—were eager to read the story. By 1908 there were nearly a million hardcover copies of Ben-Hur in print, and the national retailer Sears, Roebuck and Co. placed an order with Harper & Brothers for an unprecedented million copies of a cheap edition, to cost only forty-eight cents. It was the biggest single-title book order to date.

  Lew did not live to hear about it, nor yet to enjoy the longevity of the stage version of his novel. He died of stomach cancer in 1905, and the flags at the Indiana State Capitol flew at half-mast for a full month. Planning for the grand Statuary Hall in the US Capitol was under way, and each state was allowed to nominate two of its famous citizens to be immortalized in marble in the rotunda. Indiana chose Lew—the only author in the group. The marble figure shows him in Civil War uniform, and the sober granite base identifies him simply as “Soldier. Writer. Diplomat.”

  Lew and Susan’s only child, Henry Lane Wallace, had long been managing the business of Ben-Hur, which was a full-time job. One constant concern was
protecting the copyright. While in the 1880s the concerns had been tableaux or readings of excerpts accompanied by “lantern slides,” by the time of Lew’s death, copyright threats came from a new art form: moving pictures. A somewhat-primitive film released in 1908 featured a chariot race shot on a beach in New York City and interior scenes in which the actors wore costumes borrowed from the Metropolitan Opera. The movie business was so young that the producers hadn’t felt obliged to purchase film rights for Ben-Hur. That was a huge error: Henry Wallace joined forces with Lew’s longtime publisher and the producers of the stage version of Ben-Hur, and they sued the film production company.

  It was an unprecedented situation: the film producers, the Kalem Company, claimed that the movie actually provided advertising for the book and play. After three years of appeals, the case reached the Supreme Court and the Wallace team won. Kalem had to pay $25,000 plus expenses, and the Ben-Hur case established that copyright protection extended to film adaptations.

  Not that Kalem’s idea was wrong—Ben-Hur was obviously ideal for filming. But Henry Wallace wanted to wait until film technology had matured before he sold the rights. Part of the appeal of his father’s book was its potential for sheer spectacle; Henry needed to be sure that the eventual film would do the spectacle justice. Finally in 1919, after holding out for more than a decade, he sold the film rights for $600,000 (nearly $8.5 million today). One of Lew’s original stipulations endured: Jesus could not be depicted by a human actor. Instead, his presence would be inferred from a hand or a foot or a footprint.