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Льюис Уоллес – Ben-Hur (страница 2)

18

Redemption

Initial sales of Ben-Hur were as slow as might be expected for a relatively unknown fifty-three-year-old novelist. (Wallace’s first historical novel, The Fair God, had appeared in 1873.) But Wallace had friends and fans in high places: President James A. Garfield loved it and even Ulysses S. Grant is said to have read it from cover to cover without pause. Pope Leo XIII gave it his official blessing.

Ben-Hur sold almost half a million copies in its first ten years and then kept going, overtaking even Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852) to become the highest-selling American novel of the nineteenth century. Where that novel had anecdotally helped spark the Civil War, Ben-Hur helped pull the country back together, finding almost as many fans in the southern states (among them Confederate leader Jefferson Davis) as it did in the North. The nationwide hit novel became a touring hit play in 1899.

Wallace died at home in Indiana in 1905, never to know that the play would ultimately reach an international audience of 20 million in its twenty-two-year run, or become one of the most iconic (and most garlanded) films ever made; but without a doubt he died knowing he had put ‘Shiloh and its slanders’ behind him. He had found his elusive purpose in life.

Dedication

To the wife of my youth who still abides with me

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

History of William Collins

Life & Times

Dedication

Book First

Chapter I—Into the Desert

Chapter IX—The Cave at Bethlehem

Chapter X—The Light in the Sky

Chapter XI—Christ Is Born

Chapter XII—The Wise Men Arrive at Jerusalem

Chapter XIII—The Witnesses Before Herod

Chapter XIV—The Wise Men Find the Child

Book Second

Chapter I—Jerusalem Under the Romans

Chapter II—Ben-Hur and Messala

Chapter III—A Judean Home

Chapter IV—The Strange Things Ben-Hur Wants to Know

Chapter V—Rome and Israel—A Comparison

Chapter VI—The Accident to Gratus

Chapter VII—A Galley Slave

Book Third

Chapter I—Quintus Arrius Goes to Sea

Chapter II—At the Oar

Chapter III—Arrius and Ben-Hur on Deck

Chapter IV—“No. 60”

Chapter V—The Sea Fight

Chapter VI—Arrius Adopts Ben-Hur

Book Fourth

Chapter I—Ben-Hur Returns East

Chapter II—On the Orontes

Chapter III—The Demand on Simonides

Chapter IV—Simonides and Esther

Chapter V—The Grove of Daphne

Chapter VI—The Mulberries of Daphne

Chapter VII—The Stadium in the Grove

Chapter VIII—The Fountain of Castalia

Chapter IX—The Chariot Race Discussed

Chapter X—Ben-Hur Hears of Christ

Chapter XI—The Wise Servant and His Daughter

Chapter XII—A Roman Orgy

Chapter XIII—A Driver for Ilderim’s Arabs

Chapter XIV—The Dowar in the Orchard of Palms

Chapter XV—Balthasar Impresses Ben-Hur

Chapter XVI—Christ Is Coming—Balthasar

Chapter XVII—The Kingdom—Spiritual or Political?

Book Fifth

Chapter I—Messala Doffs His Chaplet

Chapter II—Ilderim’s Arabs Under the Yoke