The Autobiography of a Horse, the only novel by Anna Sewell and the first major animal story in children’s literature. The author wrote it “to induce kindness, sympathy, and an understanding treatment of horses”; it was published in 1877, shortly before Sewell’s death.
Black Beauty, a handsome well-born, well-bred horse of the era before automobiles, narrates the story. He is initially owned by kind masters but is sold to successively crueler owners. Eventually he collapses from overwork and ill treatment, but in the end he is sold to another kind owner and recovers. Beauty is an ideal horse—obedient, willing, intelligent, and courageous. Sewell’s careful observation and extensive descriptions of equine behaviour lend verisimilitude to the novel.
Sewell’s decision to write the book as an “animal autobiography” was quite novel in Victorian England, and the little green book with the sad-looking horse on the cover was released to great fanfare. Promoters in the U.S. brought a pirated edition of the book to America hoping it would do for animal rights what Uncle Tom’s Cabin had done for slavery. Within two years, 1 million copies of Black Beauty were in circulation in the U.S., and animal rights activists regularly passed copies of the book to horse drivers and stable hands.
Picture Credit : Google
