Black Beauty

Credits and rights

Original writer

Anna Sewell

Publisher of this edition

BoingyBooks Classics

Original publisher

Project Gutenberg

Adaptation credits

John Shoufler / BoingyBooks Classics — digital edition

Original source / edition

Black Beauty (1877)

License

Public Domain

License link

https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/

Rights and adaptation notice

This work is in the public domain. John Shoufler published this digital edition through BoingyBooks Classics. The original work remains public domain and may be copied, adapted, and shared.

Black Beauty by Anna Sewell (1877)

The autobiography of a horse. From a happy colt in an English meadow through years of varying treatment — kindness and cruelty, wealth and poverty — Black Beauty's story changed how the world treats animals.

Historical Significance:
Anna Sewell wrote Black Beauty as her first and only novel while bedridden with a debilitating illness. She dictated portions to her mother, completing it in 1877. She sold it to the publisher Jarrolds for £20 and died five months after publication, never knowing that her book would become one of the bestselling novels of all time (over 50 million copies).

The novel was written specifically to promote the humane treatment of horses. It directly influenced the abolition of the bearing rein (a device that forced horses' heads into uncomfortable positions) and supported the growing animal welfare movement. The RSPCA and American Humane Association used it as advocacy literature. It is credited as the book that changed humanity's relationship with animals.

This public domain classic was originally published in 1877. Free to read and share.