Black Beauty

Description

Black Beauty is a novel by English author Anna Sewell, first published in 1877. One of the best-selling books of all times, the book is narrated as a first person account of a horse called Black Beauty. Beginning with his life on a farm in England, the story tells how he is passed from owner to owner and experiences acts both of cruelty and of kindness. Although now it is seen as a children's book, Sewell wrote it to educate adults on the ways in which horses were treated - in particular it mentions the conditions of horses pulling cabs in Victorian London, with emphasis on the restrictive objects used on them, such as blinkers and reins. It had a big impact on the way people thought about horse cruelty and the book has been compared to Uncle Tom's Cabin in the way it influenced social protest.

At the time of publication, the author was an invalid who didn't leave her house. She died five months after Black Beauty came out, but did live long enough to see it become a success.

№ 23 in Goodreads 100 Best Nineteenth-Century British and Irish Novels.

This book has 59,820 words, 122 pages in the PDF version, and was originally published in 1877.

Production notes: This ebook of Black Beauty was published by Global Grey on the 21st October 2021. The artwork used for the cover is 'Golding Constable's Black Riding-Horse' by John Constable.