Black Beauty

Black Beauty is a fictional autobiographical memoir told by a horse, who recounts many tales, both of cruelty and kindness. The title page of the first edition states that it was "Translated from the Original Equine by Anna Sewell." It was composed in the last years of her life, during which she was confined to her house as an invalid. After its publication in 1877, Sewell lived just long enough to see her first and only novel become an immediate bestseller, as well as it encouraging the better treatment of many cruelly-treated animals.

Although initially intended for people who work with horses, it soon became a children's classic. While outwardly teaching animal welfare, it also contains allegorical lessons about how to treat people with kindness, sympathy and respect. The story is narrated in the first person and each short chapter relates an incident in Black Beauty's life, with Sewell's detailed observations and extensive descriptions of horse behaviour lending the novel a good deal of verisimilitude.

By : Anna Sewell (1820 - 1878)

01 - My Early Home 02 - The Hunt 03 - My Breaking In 04 - Birtwick Park 05 - A Fair Start 06 - Liberty 07 - Ginger 08 - Ginger's Story Continued 09 - Merrylegs 10 - A Talk in the Orchard 11 - Plain Speaking 12 - A Stormy Day 13 - The Devil's Trade Mark 14 - James Howard 15 - The Old Ostler 16 - The Fire 17 - John Manly's Talk 18 - Going for the Doctor 19 - Only Ignorance 20 - Joe Green 21 - The Parting 22 - Earlshall 23 - A Strike for Liberty 24 - The Lady Anne, or a Runaway Horse 25 - Reuben Smith 26 - How it Ended 27 - Ruined and Going Downhill 28 - A Job Horse and His Drivers 29 - Cockneys 30 - A Thief 31 - A Humbug 32 - A Horse Fair 33 - A London Cab Horse 34 - An Old War Horse 35 - Jerry Barker 36 - The Sunday Cab 37 - The Golden Rule 38 - Dolly and a Real Gentleman 39 - Seedy Sam 40 - Poor Ginger 41 - The Butcher 42 - The Election 43 - A Friend in Need 44 - Old Captain and His Successor 45 - Jerry's New Year 46 - Jakes and the Lady 47 - Hard Times 48 - Farmer Thoroughgood and His Grandson Willie 49 - My Last Home

The story is narrated in the first person as an autobiographical memoir told by the titular horse named Black Beauty—beginning with his carefree days as a colt on an English farm with his mother, to his difficult life pulling cabs in London, to his happy retirement in the country. Along the way, he meets with many hardships and recounts many tales of cruelty and kindness. Each short chapter recounts an incident in Black Beauty's life containing a lesson or moral typically related to the kindness, sympathy, and understanding treatment of horses, with Sewell's detailed observations and extensive descriptions of horse behaviour lending the novel a good deal of verisimilitude.

The book describes conditions among London horse-drawn taxicab drivers, including the financial hardship caused to them by high licence fees and low, legally fixed fares. A page footnote in some editions says that soon after the book was published, the difference between 6-day taxicab licences (not allowed to trade on Sundays) and 7-day taxicab licences (allowed to trade on Sundays) was abolished and the taxicab licence fee was much reduced.