Books in French are on www.livres-cinema.info
Ben-Hur
The Original Blockbuster
by Jon Solomon
(0 vote)Average rating:
| 0 | rating |  = We can do without |
| 0 | rating |  = Good book |
| 0 | rating |  = Excellent book |
| 0 | rating |  = Unique / a reference |
Your rating: -
Book Presentation:
The complete history of the Ben-Hur phenomenon
Ben-Hur was the first literary blockbuster to generate multiple and hugely profitable adaptations, highlighted by the 1959 film that won a record-setting 11 Oscars. More than a century before The Hunger Games and Harry Potter, and decades before Gone with the Wind and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, General Lew Wallace’s Ben-Hur was spun off into dozens of popular publications and media productions, becoming a veritable commercial brand name that earned tens of millions of dollars.
Ben-Hur: The Original Blockbuster surveys the phenomenon’s unprecedented range and extraordinary endurance: various editions, spin-off publications, stage productions, movies, comic books, radio plays, and retail products were successfully marketed and sold from the 1880s and throughout the twentieth century. Today Ben-Hur Live is touring Europe and Asia, with a third film released in 2016.
Jon Solomon’s book offers an exciting and detailed study of the Ben-Hur brand, tracking its spectacular journey from Wallace’s original novel through to twenty-first century adaptations, and encompassing a wealth of previously unexplored material along the way.
About the Author:
Jon Solomon is Robert D. Novak Professor of Western Civilization and Culture at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is the author of Giovanni Boccaccio: The Genealogy of the Pagan Gods (Harvard University Press, 2011), The Ancient World in the Cinema: Revised and Expanded Edition (Yale University Press, 2001), Ptolemy's Harmonics: Translation and Commentary (Brill, 1999), The Ancient World in the Cinema (A. S. Barnes & Co, 1978), Ancient Roman Feasts and Recipes (E. A. Seemann, 1977), The Complete Three Stooges (C3 Entertainment, 2001). He is editor of Accessing Antiquity: The Computerization of Classics Studies (University of Arizona Press, 1993), Apollo: Origins and Influences (University of Arizona Press, 1994) and Ancient Worlds in Film and Television: Gender and Politics (Brill, 2013).
Press Reviews:
He has collected an unimaginable amount of material and has thus created a Ben-Hur lexicon that, for a long time, will serve as a reference book for all future stories about the famous Roman and his later works.(translated from German)– Kresimir Matijevic, Europa-Universitat Flensburg, Thersites
Jon Solomon here sets a new standard for scholarship on the reception of antiquity in the media age. His book is an epic in its own right: a thorough treatment of an astonishing literary phenomenon that still pervades our popular arts and commercial culture, even legal history.– Martin Winkler, George Mason University
See the publisher website: Edinburgh University Press
See Ben-Hur (1959) on IMDB ...
> From the same author:
> On a related topic:
Bigger than Ben-Hur (2016)
The Book, Its Adaptations, and Their Audiences
Dir. Barbara Ryan and Milette Shamir
Making The Best Years of Our Lives (2023)
The Hollywood Classic That Inspired a Nation
by Alison Macor
Subject: One Film > The Best Years of Our Lives
From Broadway to the Bowery (2010)
A History and Filmography of the Dead End Kids, Little Tough Guys, East Side Kids and Bowery Boys Films, with Cast Biographies
by Leonard Getz
William Wyler (2013)
The Life and Films of Hollywood's Most Celebrated Director
Subject: Director > William Wyler
Back
