Chapters in this book

1. Frontmatter i
2. Contents v
3. List of Figures vii
4. Acknowledgements x
5. A Note about the Hyphen: Ben-Hur vs Ben Hur xii
6. Series Editors’ Preface xiii
7. List of Abbreviations xvi
8. 1 The First Blockbuster 1
9. 2 Lew Wallace Before Ben-Hur 19
10. 3 “How I Came To Write Ben-Hur” 46
11. 4 Publication and Early Reception of the Novel 102
12. 5 The Transformations of the Novel 138
13. 6 Reasons for Success 188
14. 7 Early Staged Readings: Ben-Hur, in Tableaux and Pantomime 218
15. 8 Ben-Hur in Song and Instrumental Music 269
16. 9 “My God! Did I Set All This Into Motion?”: The Klaw & Erlanger Ben-Hur 311
17. 10 “Ben-Hur Flour Has The Go To Make The Dough”: Early Ben-Hur Commerce 408
18. 11 Ben-Hur in Moving Pictures: Stereopticon Lectures and the 1907 Kalem Ben-Hur 509
19. 12 “The Greatest Motion Picture Property in the History of the Screen”: The 1925 MGM Ben-Hur 561
20. 13 Between the MGM Films 661
21. 14 “The World’s Most Honored Motion Picture”: The 1959 MGM Ben-Hur 728
22. 15 The Next Half-Century: New Formats and New Versions 824
23. Bibliography 863
24. General Index 884
25. Ben-Hur Index 897
26. Personal Names, Companies, Institutions, Societies, and Unions Index 900
27. Non-Ben-Hur Title Index 909