Lisa D. Connell

In November 1877, a dying woman published a book about a horse. She had never written a novel before, had spent much of her life struggling to walk, and had only months left to live. She would never know that her book would become one of the most influential animal stories ever written. Her name was Anna Sewell. Born in Norfolk, England, in 1820, Anna was fourteen when she injured her ankles. The injuries left her with lasting mobility problems, and walking became increasingly difficult. She relied on horse-drawn carriages to get around. But this dependence brought her face to face with something that troubled her deeply. Victorian Britain ran on horses. They pulled carriages through crowded cities, hauled heavy loads and worked long hours, often under harsh conditions. Some were beaten when exhausted. Others were forced to wear bearing reins, straps that held their heads unnaturally high because fashionable carriage owners preferred the appearance. Anna saw animals suffering for the convenience and vanity of their owners. By her fifties, her own health had deteriorated considerably. Yet she began working on a novel unlike anything she had previously written. Instead of telling people how to treat horses, she allowed a horse to tell his own story. Black Beauty described life through the eyes of an animal passed between owners, experiencing both extraordinary kindness and terrible cruelty. Readers encountered the physical consequences of overwork, harsh equipment and neglect from the horse’s perspective. Anna wrote portions herself and dictated others to her mother, Mary, when illness made writing difficult. Her purpose was not to entertain children. She wanted the people responsible for horses to understand what their treatment meant to the animals. In November 1877, Black Beauty was published. Anna Sewell died on April 25, 1878, just five months later. She was 58. The novel became an international bestseller, widely read by children and adults. Animal welfare advocates embraced it, and its depiction of the bearing rein helped strengthen public opposition to the practice. Anna did not live to see the book’s extraordinary reach. She had spent years depending on horses because her own body made walking painful. In her final years, she used that experience to write a story that asked the world to consider their suffering. Black Beauty was the only novel she ever published.