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. While forthrightly teaching animal welfare, it also teaches how to treat people with kindness, sympathy, and respect. ...
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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. 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. In 2003, the novel was listed at number 58 on the BBC's survey The Big Read. Perhaps the most celebrated animal story of the nineteenth century, Black Beauty is the suspenseful and deeply moving account of a horse's experiences at the hands of many owners - some, sensitive riders who treated him gently others, cruel drivers who thoughtlessly inflicted lasting damage.Written as the animal's autobiography, and as an appeal for the humane treatment of horses, Anna Sewell's beloved classic reveals as much about human conduct and the social ills of the time as it does about the treatment of animals. Scenes from the lives of both the landed gentry and the impoverished working class offer a subtle but well-rounded perspective of social conditions in England during the late nineteenth century.
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Add this copy of Black Beauty to cart. $21.52, new condition, Sold by Ingram Customer Returns Center rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from NV, USA, published 2022 by Lulu.com.
This is one of the best horse stories of all time, it still rings true over a hundred years after it was written: horses haven't changed, even if the work they do is different now, and nor have the humans who deal with them. Every horse-loving child should read it.
My favourite edition of this favourite story is not the one illustrated but the Dent 1972 reprint with the superb illustrations by Lucy Kemp-Welsh. they add an extra dimension of reality to the horse. The binding is dark red fake leather and the book looks old-fashioned, so some youngsters might prefer a more modern edition. But no other edition has illustrations that are a patch on these.
Azzie
Jul 17, 2009
I read this when I was in elementary school and the story has stayed with me ever since. So many scenes in the book have never left me and now in my early 20s I have not sat on a horse since I finished reading this book. It's hard to separate the horse characters in Ms. Sewell's book from actual horses and every time I see a horse, I have to wonder if the horse would appreciate me sitting on him or her.
A very powerful book and recommended for anyone, horse lovers or those indifferent to these elegant creatures.
