Ben-Hur; a tale of the Christ

Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ is a novel by Lew Wallace published on November 12, 1880 by Harper & Brothers. Wallace\'s work is part of an important sub-genre of historical fiction set among the characters of the New Testament. The novel was a phenomenal best-seller; it soon surpassed Harriet Beecher Stowe\'s Uncle Tom\'s Cabin (1852) as the best-selling American novel and retained this distinction until the 1936 publication of Margaret Mitchell\'s Gone with the Wind.