BLACK BEAUTY [Deluxe Edition]

BLACK BEAUTY [Deluxe Edition] THE COMPLETE CLASSIC WITH BEAUTIFUL ILLUSTRATIONS INCLUDING BONUS ENTIRE AUDIO NARRATION

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 bestseller, with Sewell dying just five months after its publication, long enough to see her first and only novel become a success. With fifty million copies sold, Black Beauty is one of the best-selling books of all time. While forthrightly teaching animal welfare, it also teaches how to treat people with kindness, sympathy, and respect. Black Beauty became a forerunner to the pony book genre of children's literature.

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About The Author 

Anna Sewell was born in Norfolk, England & had a brother named Philip, an engineer in Europe. At 14, Anna fell while walking home from school in the rain & injured both ankles. Through mistreatment of the injury, she became unable to walk or stand for any length of time for the rest of her life. Disabled & unable to walk since she was a young child, Anna Sewell began learning about horses early in life, spending many hours driving her father to and from the station from which he commuted to work. Her dependence on horse-drawn transportation fostered her respect of horses. The local estate of Tracy Park, now a golf club, was said to be the inspiration for Black Beauty's “Birtwick Park.” Sewell's introduction to writing began in her youth when she helped edit the works of her mother, Mary Wright Sewell (1797–1884), a deeply religious, popular author of juvenile best-sellers. By telling the story of a horse's life in the form of an autobiography and describing the world through the eyes of the horse, Anna Sewell broke new literary ground.

She never married or had children. In visits to European spas, she met many writers, artists, and philanthropists. Her only book was Black Beauty, written between 1871-1877 in their house at Old Catton. During this time, her health was declining, and she could barely get out of bed. Her dearly-loved mother often had to help her in her illness. She sold it to the local publishers, Jarrold & Sons. The book broke records for sales and is the “6th best seller in the English language."

Sewell died of hepatitis or tuberculosis on 25 April 1878, only 5 months after the novel was published, but lived long enough to see its initial success. She was buried on 30 April 1878 in the Quaker burial-ground at Lammas near Buxton, Norfolk. In Norwich, England, not far from her resting place, is a wall plaque marking her resting place. Her birthplace in Church Plain, Great Yarmouth is now a museum.

She did not write the novel for children. She said her purpose in writing the novel was "to induce kindness, sympathy, & an understanding treatment of horses" Her sympathetic portrayal of the plight of working animals led to a vast outpouring of concern for animal welfare and is said to have been instrumental in abolishing the cruel practice of of using the checkrein or "bearing rein", a strap used to keep horses' heads high, fashionable in Victorian England but painful and damaging to a horse.