An immediate best-seller on publication, Ben Hur remains a dazzling achievement by any standards. A thoroughly exhilarating tale of betrayal, revenge and salvation, it is the only novel that ranks with Uncle Tom's Cabin as a genuine American folk possession.

Ben-Hur is better known as a film than as a novel. Cinematic in scope and narrative, it was nevertheless as a book that it first met huge popular success on its publication in 1880. Intended as a moral and inspirational narrative, Judah Ben-Hur's life parallels that of Jesus as he makes a journey of discovery and enlightenment through the Mediterranean world from Jerusalem through Nazareth to the galleys that carry him to shipwreck in the Aegean and, finally, Rome. A spiritual tale of the quest for love and the recovery of identity and patrimony, the novel also displays a vivid realism based on Wallace's biblical research and knowledge of the Holy Land. Like other 'toga novels' of the period, Ben-Hur reflects the dissent, division, and moral contradiction of America's emerging imperial culture, the 'New Woman' question, the settlement of the Far West, and even trade unionism. Rich in social parallels, Ben-Hur is both a great historical epic and a window on late nineteenth-century literature.