English novelist Anna Sewell published her book Black Beauty in 1877.
The novel is written in the first person by the eponymous horse Black Beauty as an autobiographical biography, starting with his carefree days as a foal on an English farm with his mother, through his challenging time pulling taxis in London, and ending with his content retirement in the country. He encounters several challenges along the journey and tells many tales of brutality and generosity. Each brief chapter tells an event in Black Beauty's life that has a lesson or moral that is often connected to treating horses with love, sympathy, and understanding. Sewell's in-depth observations and exhaustive descriptions of horse behavior give the book a lot of realism.
Anna Sewell was an English novelist, born on 30 March, 1820, in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk. She is known as the author of the 1877 novel Black Beauty, her only published work. Black Beauty is considered one of the top ten bestselling novels for children. Sewell died only five months after Black Beauty's publication, having lived long enough to see her only novel become a success.
Sewell's mother, Mary Wright Sewell, was a well-known children's novelist, and her father was Isaac Phillip Sewell (1793–1879). She would never be able to walk or stand without a crutch for the rest of her life. Her passion for the humane treatment of animals was influenced by her love of horses. Sewell advocated for temperance and abolitionist ideals while assisting her mother in starting a working men's club. When the family relocated to Lancing in 1845, Sewell's health started to decline. The next year, she took a trip to Europe for medical care. After her return, the family moved again—in 1858 to Abson near Wick and in 1864 to Bath.
Only five months after the release of her sole book, Black Beauty, author Mary Ann Sewell passed away on April 25, 1878, at the age of 58 from either hepatitis or TB. She was laid to rest in a Quaker cemetery in Lamas, Norfolk, not far from Norwich.
