What to read after “Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ” by Lew Wallace: a list matched by tropes, mood and atmosphere. Under each book you will see what it has in common.
The emperor Claudius, dismissed by his family as a stammering fool, writes the hidden history of the Julio-Claudian house. From Augustus to the reign of Caligula he records the poisonings, exiles and betrayals that shaped Rome, and how he survived them by being thought harmless.
The Viking Red Orm sails from his Scandinavian home in the late tenth century and is carried through raids, courts and distant seas, from Andalusia to the Byzantine guard. A picaresque saga of raids, treasure and shifting faith, told with dry humour and a wide view of the Viking world.
Marcus Aquila, a young Roman officer, arrives in Britain after his father's legion vanished in the north. When the legion's eagle standard is rumoured to survive, Marcus and his British companion Esca travel beyond Hadrian's Wall to recover it and clear his family's name.
Sinuhe, a physician of obscure birth, serves the pharaohs of Egypt and travels through the ancient world, from Thebes and Memphis to Syria, Babylon, and Crete. His life brings him close to power, love, and loss as he questions the gods and the price of ambition.
During World War II, a young officer joins a worn-out minesweeper whose new captain, Queeg, grows increasingly erratic. When his executive officer relieves him during a typhoon, the Navy tries the officer for mutiny. The court-martial becomes a reckoning with loyalty, command and who is fit to lead.
A wandering sailor joins the whaling ship Pequod, whose captain is obsessed with hunting the white whale that took his leg. As the voyage stretches across the oceans, the crew is dragged toward a reckoning. A vast, digressive novel of obsession, the sea and human nature.
Theseus grows up in Troizen believing the sea god is his father, then learns his true parentage and travels to Athens to claim his place. On the way he becomes the year-king of Eleusis, bound by an old sacrifice, and later goes to Crete, where he enters the labyrinth and faces the Minotaur.
In 1800, Royal Navy captain Jack Aubrey takes command of a small brig and meets the ship's surgeon, Stephen Maturin, a naturalist and secret intelligence agent. Their friendship grows as the crew pursues a Spanish frigate across the Mediterranean and Atlantic.
Young Jim Hawkins finds a treasure map in a dead sailor's chest and sails for a distant island where a pirate's gold is buried. Among the crew is the one-legged cook Long John Silver, whose charm hides a plan to seize the hoard.
In 1740 a British warship hunting a Spanish treasure galleon is wrecked off Patagonia. Months later two groups of survivors reach South America with opposing stories, and a court martial must decide which men were heroes and which were mutineers.
A literary critic survives a ferry collision in San Francisco Bay and is picked up by a sealing schooner commanded by Wolf Larsen, a brutal and brilliant captain. Thrown into the crew's rough life, the soft scholar must find his footing under a man who answers to no law but his own.
In a Puritan town, a young woman is publicly shamed for having a child out of wedlock and refuses to name the father. As she builds a quiet life with her daughter, the man's secret guilt and her wronged husband's quest for revenge eat away at the community. A novel about sin and hypocrisy.
Sold into slavery after her father's death, Amara works in a brothel in Pompeii, owned by a man she hates. She hides her education and waits, building ties with the other women and looking for a way out, in a city where even a slave can sometimes buy back her freedom.
Five Union prisoners escape a siege in a hot-air balloon and are blown onto an uncharted island. There they rebuild a small civilization from its resources, aided by an unseen hand and threatened by a hidden danger.
Lavinia grows up in Latium, a king's daughter who has no voice in her own story. A prophecy names a stranger from Troy as her husband, and when Aeneas arrives their union sets off a war. Years later she tells her own version of the life the epic left unspoken.
Briseis, queen of Lyrnessus, is taken captive when the Greeks sack her city and given to Achilles as a prize. In the Greek camp she watches the war from among the enslaved women, finding moments of friendship and endurance while the men around her fight over honour and revenge.
Betrayed on the eve of his wedding and imprisoned for years, Edmond Dantès escapes with a fortune and returns under a new name. Patiently, he engineers the ruin of the men who stole his life.
In 1879 the USS Jeannette sails for the Arctic, chasing a theory about a warm open sea at the pole. Trapped and then crushed by the ice, the crew abandon ship and begin a desperate march across the pack toward Siberia.
Three men are taken aboard the Nautilus, a submarine commanded by the brilliant Captain Nemo, after it attacks their ship. As they travel the ocean depths they witness wonders and terrors of the undersea world while their host's motives stay hidden.
Shipwrecked alone on a deserted island, a castaway named Robinson Crusoe builds a life from nothing: shelter, crops and a canoe. Years of solitude end when he finds a footprint in the sand and rescues a man he names Friday.
An aging Cuban fisherman, Santiago, has gone eighty-four days without catching a fish. When a huge marlin finally takes his line far out to sea, he must hold on through a long, painful contest of endurance and will.
In German-occupied Poland, Oskar Schindler, a Czech businessman and opportunist, employs Jewish workers in his factory. As the war turns and deportations intensify, he uses his wealth and connections to shield them, at growing personal risk.
Four young refugees cross a frozen East Prussia in the winter of 1945, each hiding a secret and hoping to reach a ship that will carry them west. Their paths merge among the crowds fleeing the advancing Soviet army, bound for a vessel whose fate none of them suspect.
In 1914 Ernest Shackleton sets out to cross Antarctica; in 1915 his ship is crushed by the ice and the crew is left stranded. This account follows their months on drifting floes and the desperate open-boat journey he makes to seek rescue.
What should I read after “Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ”?
Start with “I, Claudius”, “The Long Ships”, “The Eagle of the Ninth”: they are the closest to “Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ” in tropes and mood. Under each book in the list you will see what exactly it has in common.
How are similar books chosen?
We compare tropes (for “Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ” these are Ancient World, Revenge, Redemption Arc), genre, plot, era and tone. It is not “readers also bought”; it is similarity in the content itself.
Are there recent books in this list?
Yes. Among the newer ones are “The Wager”, “The Wolf Den”, “Lavinia”. Switch the “Modern” filter to keep only books from 2000 onward.
