Books with author Anna Sewell

The story begins in a meadow of 19th century England, where the young horse, Black Beauty, has just been born. There, his mother nurtures him, raises him and gives him advice which he remembers and acts on for the rest of his life: do good and give your best effort always and everything will work out. The story of his life is this advice in living form. As his youngest days pass in that meadow, he witnesses the death of his own brother and a rider in a hunting accident. Soon after, he must undergo the breaking-in process where his trainer gently teaches him to bear a rider, wear a saddle and bridle and respond to the rider’s driving signals. After this coming-of-age training, he is ready to leave the meadow of his youth. He is sold to Squire Gordon, a man who takes a liking to this strong, young, beautifully dark coated horse. Squire Gordon’s residence, Birtwick Park, thus becomes Beauty’s new home. There he meets those who will become among his dearest friends: Ginger, Merrylegs, John Manly and James. John is his new coachman, and a good, wise, gentle old fellow. James and Joe, his two successive grooms, were also quite caring and well-intentioned. So he soon falls in love with his new home and is happy there, except for one problem: he misses his liberty. Never again is he left to do just as he wishes; instead, he will be ordered and ridden by this human or that human without break. The earliest days of his youth are over and he can no longer roam around meadows and spend his days resting with his mother anymore. Despite this loss of liberty, Beauty is still happy to be in this situation rather than a situation where the owner was cruel or neglectful, and soon enough he becomes accustomed to the life-long burden of servitude towards humans. One day when in conversation with his friends Ginger and Merrylegs, he hears stories of wicked masters. The former horse, a powerful, lively mare, tells of her harsh upbringing and how it scarred her for life to have a neglectful master. Thus the horses of Birtwick begin their long discussion amongst themselves concerning the faults in humans rule over horses and the cruelties horses often face.

The story of Black Beauty is narrated in the first person as an autobiographical memoir told by the titular horse named Black Beauty—beginning with his carefree days as a colt on an English farm with his mother, to his difficult life pulling cabs in London, to his happy retirement in the country. Along the way, he meets with many hardships and recounts many tales of cruelty and kindness. Each short chapter recounts an incident in Black Beauty's life containing a lesson or moral typically related to the kindness, sympathy, and understanding treatment of horses, with Sewell's detailed observations and extensive descriptions of horse behavior lending the novel a good deal of verisimilitude. The book describes conditions among London horse-drawn taxicab drivers, including the financial hardship caused to them by high licence fees and low, legally fixed fares. A page footnote in some editions says that soon after the book was published, the difference between 6-day taxicab licences (not allowed to trade on Sundays) and 7-day taxicab licences (allowed to trade on Sundays) was abolished and the taxicab licence fee was much reduced.

Black Beauty is an 1877 novel by English author Anna Sewell. It was composed in the last years of her life, during which she remained in her house as an invalid. The novel became an immediate best-seller, with Sewell dying just five months after its publication, but having lived long enough to see her only novel become a success. With fifty million copies sold, Black Beauty is one of the best-selling books of all time.

Black Beauty is an 1877 novel by English author Anna Sewell. It was composed in the last years of her life, during which she remained in her house as an invalid. The novel became an immediate best-seller, with Sewell dying just five months after its publication, but long enough to see her only novel become a success. With fifty million copies sold, Black Beauty is one of the best-selling books of all time.