Black Beauty: The Autobiography of a Horse

New York: Hurst and Company, 1903. Reissue. Hard Cover. Good/No Jacket. 0x0x0. Boards soiled, edges and endpapers foxed, pencil and ink gift notes on front endpapers, paper clip rust mark on top edge of first two pages. 1903 Hard Cover. 262, [12] pp. Olive cloth, black and blue titles with black, blue, green, and gilt decorations. Unattributed frontispiece and illustrations. Black Beauty: His Grooms and Companions, the Autobiography of a Horse is an 1877 novel by English author Anna Sewell. It was composed in the last years of her life, during which she was bedridden and seriously ill. The novel became an immediate best-seller, with Sewell dying just five months after its publication, but having lived 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. In 2003, the novel was listed at number 58 on the BBC's survey The Big Read. It is seen as a forerunner of the pony book.