Additional information
by Lauren St John (Introduction by)
Designed to appeal to the book lover, the Macmillan Collector's Library is a series of beautifully bound pocket-sized gift editions of much loved classic titles. Bound in real cloth, printed on high quality paper, and featuring ribbon markers and gilt edges, Macmillan Collector's Library are books to love and treasure.
Black Beauty enjoys a carefree upbringing on a farm with his mother. His gentle first master trains him well but is sadly forced to sell him. As Beauty then passes from one owner to the next, he experiences terrible hardship and cruelty but his unshakeable spirit wills him to survive.
Anna Sewell's autobiographical novel of a horse is one of the best-selling books of all time, and her depiction of Victorian society's harsh treatment of animals inspired significant changes to animal welfare in the both the UK and America.
This Macmillan Collector's Library edition features illustrations by Cecil Aldin and an afterword by children's writer Lauren St John.
Author Biography
Anna Sewell was born in 1820 into a Quaker family whose respect for horses was out of step with the common view of the time, that animals should be worked until they dropped. Disabled in a fall aged 14, Anna lived all her life with her parents but became an expert carriage driver and, as editor and stern critic, helped her mother, Mary Wright Sewell, become a successful author of evangelical children's books. Anna wrote Black Beauty, her only book, in the last years of her life, as a plea for more humane treatment of horses. She died in 1878, a year after the novel was published to wide acclaim.
