Anna Sewell
1820–1878
Biography
Anna Sewell lived from 1820 to 1878. She was born in Norfolk into a Quaker family and moved to London as a small child. Much of her adult life was shaped by a long illness that left her largely confined to home, and she spent time at spa towns in England and on the Continent in search of treatment. She lived with her parents, moving between Sussex, Gloucestershire and Norfolk. Her mother, Mary Sewell, wrote popular books for children, and Anna helped her with charitable work and with preparing those books.
Sewell's only book is Black Beauty, a novel told in the first person by a horse. She wrote it between 1871 and 1877, and it was published only a few months before her death in 1878. The horse of the title is born on a country estate and passes through a string of owners, in the country and in town. The story shows the damage done by careless riding, poor stabling and the bearing-rein. Sewell's aim was plainly to win kinder treatment for horses, and the book has been read by generations of children since.
On this site the book appears under its full title, Black Beauty: The Autobiography of a Horse. Its plain voice and direct moral make it easy for young readers to follow, while its arguments about cruelty and care speak to grown-ups as well. It is the only book Anna Sewell wrote, and it remains one of the best-known children's novels in English.
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Books
Black Beauty: The autobiography of a horse
by Anna Sewell
Black Beauty: His Grooms and Companions, the Autobiography of a Horse is an 1877 novel by English author Anna Sewell. It was written from a horse as main character's perspective. She wrote it in the last years of her life, during which she was bedridden and seriously ill. The…
Summary from Wikipedia: Black Beauty (CC BY-SA 4.0)