![]() ![]() The binding on this copy is known as 'Carter's variant 'C'', relating to a bibliography of binding variants not the most uncommon issue, but extremely uncommon in such good condition. Grimshaw, The Annotated 'Black Beauty',1989). It is said to be 'the sixth best seller in the English language'' (E.B. Pirated in America in 1890, its sales broke publishing records. In ironic contrast, her only book has achieved phenomenal success. The author died just five months after publication. Anna Sewells Black Beauty was an immediate success on its publication in 1877, and has gone on to sell an estimated 50 million copies. Black Beauty is often now recognised as a game-changer in the way that horses were looked after and trained, particularly relating to the usage of the notorious bearing-rein. The aim of the book, Anna Sewell wrote at the time, was to 'induce kindness, sympathy, and an understanding treatment of horses' (Mrs Bayly, The life and letters of Mrs Sewell, 1889). The book was not immediately a big seller, but word of it soon spread and it quickly became a much-loved classic of children's literature, as well as a bastion for the prevention of cruelty to animals, both in the UK and the US. ![]() Black Beauty was Quaker author Sewell's only publication, written during periods of ill health between 1871 & 1877, often through dictation to her mother. An unusually good example of this famous equestrian tale, told from the perspective of a horse. ![]()
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