Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ.

WALLACE, Lew.

Item Number: 68090

New York: Harper & Brothers, 1880.

First edition, first issue (with the first issue dedication “to the wife of my youth.”) of Wallace’s classic work. Octavo, original decorated cloth. Near fine in the rare original dust jacket with a few small closed tears. Laid in is a one page autograph letter signed by Wallace to the editor of The Century Magazine in which the author encloses an installment of The Capture of Fort Donelson and apologizes for his delays (1 page, Crawfordsville, 8 October 1884). Housed in a custom half morocco clamshell box.

"In America, 300,000 copies were sold in the first ten years after publication, making it one of the highest-ranking bestsellers of the nineteenth century" (Grolier). It became a best-selling American novel, surpassing Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852) in sales. The book also inspired other novels with biblical settings and was adapted for the stage and motion picture productions. Ben-Hur remained at the top of the US all-time bestseller list until the publication of Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the Wind (1936). The 1959 MGM film adaptation of Ben-Hur was seen by tens of millions and won 11 Academy Awards in 1960, after which the book's sales increased and it surpassed Gone with the Wind. It was blessed by Pope Leo XIII, the first novel ever to receive such praise. The success of the novel and its stage and film adaptations also helped it to become a popular cultural icon that was used to promote numerous commercial products.