Anna Sewell wrote Black Beauty in 1877. It was to be her first and only book. Sewell, who grew up in a Quaker family of Northern England, was an invalid for most of her life. Since she could not stand for long periods of time, she learned how to ride and drive horses and loved to take every opportunity to do just that. She did not marry; instead, she chose to remain with her mother—a woman for whom Sewell had great affection and respect—and the two took care of each other. She dedicated this book to her mother for the sympathy and kindness her mother expressed and taught her daughter to express.
She completed the book only a few months before her death, though she lived to see it become...
