Almanac of Story Tellers: Lew Wallace

      Every day brings a new story.  And each day contributes to the art of story telling -- in prose and poetry, in music, on the stage, on the screen, and, of course, in books. 

Today is the story of April 10th

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    It is the 100th day of the year, leaving 265 days remaining in 2022.

   

    On this date in 1827, Lew Wallace, who wrote Ben-Hur, was born in Brookville, Ind.

    Wallace was a Union general in the U.S. Civil War, the governor of the New Mexico Territory, a U.S diplomat, and a story teller who wrote poems, novels, and biographies. But it was his novel Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ that became one of the most influential novels of the 19th Century, and by some standards, has been one of the best-selling books ever.

    In addition, Ben-Hur has been adapted for the movie or TV screen at least six times, including the 1959 production that starred Charlton Heston and won 11 Academy Awards. It has been adapted for the theater, despite the difficulty of staging the chariot races. 

     The novel, published in 1880, got a slow start, but by word of mouth -- including praise from several presidents of the United States -- began to find an audience. It became, by some accounts, the best-selling novel in the United States when it passed Uncle Tom's Cabin, until it itself was passed by Gone With the Wind.   

A first edition copy

    Ben-Hur tells the tale of Judah Ben-Hur, a Jewish prince from Jeruselum, pairing with the story of Jesus, who lives in the same time and place. Ben-Hur is captured and enslaved by the Romans after he was betrayed by a friend who said he tried to assassinate the Roman governor of Judae. His family also was punished, and their property was seized.

    While living and working as a slave, Judah vowed revenge. He met  some good furtune, and was trained as a soldier and a charioteer.  He met Jesus Christ several times, and after witnessing the crucifixion. decided to follow Jesus and drop his plans to get even, saying they did not comply with Jesus' teachings.

     (In his later autobiography, Wallace said he believed in god, but he was not a member of any specific church or denomination.)

    He reportedly came up with the idea after a discussion of whether there is a god, and Wallace was upset he did not present a cogent argument. So he studied the bible, theology, and the ancient history of the Middle East.

    

     That gave him the detail, possessed by few others, to write his novel not with the myths of the times, but the accuraacy of history. His vivid detail about Jerusalem, and his knowledge about the specifics of the Jewish and emerging Christain faiths of that time, and the artifacts of the period, gave him additional credibility.   

    Wallace died in 1905 in Crawfordsville, Ind.