“So Ben-Hur was the Twilight of the 1800s.” Out of the mouths of babes – an eighth-grader on a recent school visit made a striking connection between the popularity of Lew Wallace’s masterwork and the rise of new novels made into films. One aspect of the Ben-Hur legacy is merchandising […]
Ben-Hur
Writers, producers, and attorneys all over Hollywood and New York should wake up every day thanking Lew Wallace. A lawsuit involving Ben-Hur set precedent for many copyright cases over the past century. As many of you know, after Lew Wallace wrote Ben-Hur, Harper Brothers published it. Late in his life, […]
We here at the Museum like to monitor what’s being said about Lew Wallace around the internet, and most of what we find is accurate and interesting. One of the more prevalent fallacies, however, is the story that General Wallace was an atheist who wrote Ben-Hur to disprove Christianity. Here is my […]
Post by Amanda McGuire, Museum Intern I started an internship here in November to research, write, and fabricate an exhibit about Lew Wallace’s legacy through the various productions of Ben-Hur for the Legacy Gallery in the mechanical room of the Study. While I have worked on small parts of exhibits […]
We frequently receive questions by e-mail relating to Lew Wallace, and I received one today asking whether or not Lew Wallace wrote Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ on a bet. Lew Wallace’s motivation to write Ben-Hur has been the subject of many discussions, beginning during his lifetime. Wallace answered […]