Really excited to announce that my new book 'due out in August via Pen & Sword.

The Race That Never Ended: The Making of
Ben Hur
Author: Geri Parlby
Highlights
• A sweeping cultural history – Traces Ben-Hur’s journey from an 1870s painting and
Wallace’s bestselling novel to stage spectacles, silent cinema, and Hollywood
blockbusters.
• Behind-the-scenes drama – Reveals courtroom battles, theatrical innovations, and studio rivalries that shaped Ben-Hur’s rise across media.
• Hollywood at its grandest – Explores how the 1925 and 1959 films became landmarks of spectacle, rescuing studios and redefining cinema.
• A story of reinvention – Shows how Ben-Hur has been continually reimagined through reboots, television, and modern interpretations.
• Faith, empire, and spectacle intertwined – Connects the enduring power of ancient Rome and Christianity to the modern appetite for epic storytelling.
 

The Race That Never Ended tells the extraordinary story of Ben-Hur, the epic that has
galloped across centuries, cultures, and media. It begins not with Lew Wallace’s famous
novel, but with a painting: The Chariot Race, an 1870s masterpiece that captured the drama of ancient Rome before Wallace ever set pen to paper. This early vision of spectacle laid the groundwork for the story that would become Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1880), a book that transformed American literature and imagination.
From there, the journey unfolds as Ben-Hur leaps from page to stage, where live horses
thundered across theatres, dazzling audiences with a fusion of faith and spectacle. Magic
Lantern shows, pantomimes, and courtroom battles over copyright carried the story into the
modern age, while the birth of cinema gave it new life—and new struggles. The silent 1925
Ben-Hur became a defining Hollywood achievement, only to be outshone decades later by
the 1959 MGM epic that rescued a failing studio and won record-breaking Oscars.

Yet the race didn’t stop there. The saga explores how Ben-Hur has been reimagined in later
films, television, and even reboots, each reflecting the anxieties and ambitions of its time.
Along the way, it traces the enduring pull of ancient Rome, the power of religious spectacle,
and the art of Hollywood ballyhoo.
In the end, Ben-Hur is more than a story of vengeance, faith, and redemption—it is a cultural marathon, a race that, once begun, has never truly ended.