Lew Wallace, 1827-1905, was a lawyer, soldier, diplomat, and author. He was born in Brookville, Indiana on April 10, 1827, the son of David Wallace, governor of Indiana, and Esther French (Test) Wallace. As a teenager, he began to support himself by copying records in the county clerk's office and reporting the proceedings of the Indiana House of Representatives for the Indianapolis Daily Journal. Soon afterwards he began to study law in his father's office. During the Mexican-American War, Wallace helped to recruit the Marion Volunteers, also known as Company H, 1st Indiana Volunteer Infantry. He mustered into service in 1846 and became a second lieutenant. After the war, he returned to his study of law, was admitted to the bar in 1849, and began to practice in Indianapolis. He then moved to Covington, Indiana where he was elected prosecuting attorney in 1850. He was reelected in 1852, the same year he married Susan Arnold Elston, 1830-1907. The next year Wallace moved his family to Crawfordsville, Indiana, and he was elected to the Indiana State Senate in 1856. After the firing on Fort Sumter in 1861, Governor Oliver P. Morton appointed Wallace adjutant-general of Indiana. He served as a colonel of the 11th Indiana Volunteer Infantry Regiment (also known as the 11th Indiana Zouaves) during the Civil War and rose to the rank of major-general. Following the war he returned to his law practice in Crawfordsville. From 1878 to 1881 he served as the governor of the New Mexico Territory, and from 1881 to 1885 he served as a diplomatic minister to Turkey under President James A. Garfield. Wallace died on February 15, 1905 in Crawfordsville, Indiana.

Wallace is best-known for his novel Ben-Hur (1880), but he is also the author of The Fair God (1873), Commodus [1876], The Boyhood of Christ (1888), The Prince of India (1893), and The Wooing of Malkatoon (1898). His non-fiction works include The Life of Benjamin Harrison (1888) and Lew Wallace: An Autobiography (1906).