Black Beauty

Abstract

The best-selling novel Black Beauty by Anna Sewell was published in 1877. The story is a first person narrative told from the perspective of the horse Black Beauty. This unique narrative perspective enables readers to empathize with the lives of working horses and to reflect upon the cruel treatment that has been inflicted upon them. As a result, the novel serves as a strenuous and timeless statement against animal cruelty and exploitation. 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 foal 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 behavior lending the novel a good deal of verisimilitude.