Black Beauty
Anna Sewell (1877)
“A horse tells his own story — and in doing so, Anna Sewell wrote the founding document of the animal welfare movement.”
At a Glance
Black Beauty is a thoroughbred horse who narrates his own life story — from a happy foalhood on an English farm, through years of kind and brutal owners alike, to eventual rescue and a peaceful retirement. Along the way, Sewell uses the horse's first-person voice to indict cab-driving cruelty, bearing reins that force horses into painful postures, the class indifference that lets animals suffer, and the human capacity for both great kindness and casual brutality. Published in 1877, the novel was the best-selling book of the nineteenth century and directly inspired British and American animal welfare legislation.
Read full summary →Why This Book Matters
Black Beauty is the best-selling novel of the nineteenth century by most estimates — over 50 million copies sold in its first century. It was written as an explicit reform text, distributed free to cab drivers and grooms by animal welfare societies, and is credited with directly influencing legislation limiting bearing rein use and improving cab horse welfare in both Britain and the United States. The American Humane Education Society adopted it as a primary text. It is the founding document of the modern animal welfare movement in literature.
Diction Profile
Simple and direct — evangelical tract register with flashes of natural observation. Sewell deliberately avoids ornament to reach the widest possible audience.
Very low. Sewell is not a literary stylist in Fitzgerald's sense