The Jebel es Zubleh is a mountain fifty miles and more in length, and so narrow that its tracery on the map gives it a likeness to a caterpillar crawling from the south to the north. Standing on its red-and-white cliffs, and looking off under the path of the rising sun, one sees only the Desert of Arabia, where the east winds, so hateful to vinegrowers of Jericho, have kept their playgrounds since the beginning. Its feet are well covered by sands tossed from the Euphrates, there to lie, for the mountain is a wall to the pasture-lands of Moab and Ammon on the west-lands which else had been of the desert a part. The Arab has impressed his language upon everything south and east of Judea, so, in his tongue, the old Jebel is the parent of numberless wadies which, intersecting the Roman road-now a dim suggestion of what once it was, a dusty path for Syrian pilgrims to and from Mecca-run their furrows, deepening as they go, to pass the torrents of the rainy season into the Jordan, or their last receptacle, the Dead Sea. Out of one of these wadies-or, more particularly, out of that one which rises at the extreme end of the Jebel, and, extending east of north, becomes at length the bed of the Jabbok River-a traveller passed, going to the table-lands of the desert. To this person the attention of the reader is first besought.

Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ chronicles the journey of Judah Ben-Hur and the life of Jesus, from Ben-Hur's quest for vengeance against the Romans and his search for his imprisoned family to the birth of Jesus in the manger and the Crucifixion. Cleverly connecting two storylines to create both an exciting tale of adventure - with shipwrecks, chariot races, and duels - and a compelling story of love and spiritual growth, Ben-Hur has continued to engage readers and entertain audiences for more than a century. Once the best-selling and most widely read American novel, and the first work of fiction to be blessed by a Pope, Ben-Hur's popularity and esteem have given rise to numerous stage and film adaptations since the novel's first publication in 1880. This replica of the beautifully illustrated "Player's Edition" features nearly fifty images of scenes and characters from the play that will surely delight any reader of this classic piece of historical fiction. LEWIS "LEW" WALLACE (1827-1905) was born in Brookville, Indiana. He worked as an attorney, was elected to the State Senate of Indiana, and served as a Union general in the American Civil War before writing his most famous book, Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ. His other works include The Boyhood of Christ, Life of Gen. Ben Harrison, and The Prince of India; or, Why Constantinople Fell, as well as an autobiography and several other titles. Wallace also served as governor of the New Mexico Territory.