Anna Sewell’s Followers (689)

Anna Sewell

Born

in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, England, The United Kingdom

March 30, 1820

Died

April 25, 1878

Genre

Children's, Fiction, Nature

Influences

Mary Wright Sewell

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Anna Sewell was a kind and generous woman whose great love for horses and desire to see them better treated resulted in the most celebrated animal story of the nineteenth century.

Born into a strict Quaker family who lived at Great Yarmouth in Norfolk, she was brought up to believe in the importance of self-reliance, moral responsibility and 'tender consideration for the Creatures of God'. From an early age she developed a strong love of animals and abhorred any form of cruelty towards them. She seemed to have a natural affinity with horses, and the great knowledge of horsemanship evident in Black Beauty was born from a lifetime's experience. Anna received her education at home from her mother, who as well as instilling in her a sense of Anna Sewell was a kind and generous woman whose great love for horses and desire to see them better treated resulted in the most celebrated animal story of the nineteenth century.

Born into a strict Quaker family who lived at Great Yarmouth in Norfolk, she was brought up to believe in the importance of self-reliance, moral responsibility and 'tender consideration for the Creatures of God'. From an early age she developed a strong love of animals and abhorred any form of cruelty towards them. She seemed to have a natural affinity with horses, and the great knowledge of horsemanship evident in Black Beauty was born from a lifetime's experience. Anna received her education at home from her mother, who as well as instilling in her a sense of duty and religion also filled the house with music, painting and poetry - she was herself an accomplished ballad-writer - and Anna soon proved a capable pianist and artist. When she was fourteen, Anna - who already suffered from a crippling bone disease - had a fall which left her an invalid for the rest of her life. By her mid-thirties she was no longer able to get around by herself and relied on a pony cart to transport her. Characteristically she never used a whip on her own horses, and one of her intentions with Black Beauty was to 'induce kindness, sympathy, and an understanding treatment of horses'.

Confined to her room through ill-health, Anna started writing Black Beauty in 1871 but later abandoned the project until 1876. Afraid that she would not live to see the book published she worked laboriously on it despite failing health. Her mother found a publisher for the book and a delighted Anna saw her work in print in November 1877. She died five months later and was buried at the family plot near Old Catton in Norfolk. What Anna did not live to see was the effect her 'little book' has had on the millions of people around the world who have read it. It has been translated into many languages and there have been several attempts at filming it. As Anna hoped, Black Beauty has exercised great influence on the treatment of animals, a fact highlighted by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) recommendation of the book.

See Also:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Sewell ...more

Combine Editions
Anna Sewell’s books

Average rating: 3.99 · 285,347 ratings · 7,050 reviews · 301 distinct works • Similar authors

	Black Beauty 3.99 avg rating — 271,574 ratings — published 1877 — 6124 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Black Beauty, Young Folks' Edition 4.29 avg rating — 556 ratings — published 1877 — 125 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Black Beauty / The Call of the Wild by Anna Sewell, E. Raymond Kinstler (Illustrator), Jack London 4.29 avg rating — 235 ratings — published 1963	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Black Beauty's Early Days in the Meadow (Classic Picture Books) by Anna Sewell, Jane Monroe Donovan (Illustrator) 4.25 avg rating — 195 ratings — published 2006 — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Melnais skaistulis & Noslēpumainais dārzs by Anna Sewell, Zane Rozenberga (translator), Frances Hodgson Burnett (writer) 4.24 avg rating — 46 ratings — published 1998	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Black Beauty by Anna Sewell, L.M. Montgomery, Robert Louis Stevenson 4.16 avg rating — 19 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Greatest Horse Stories by Anna Sewell, Jessie Haas (Goodreads Author), Enid Bagnold 4.55 avg rating — 11 ratings — published 1999 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	MINI CLASSIC - BLACK BEAUTY 3.55 avg rating — 11 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Russell Tovey Reads Black Beauty by Anna Sewell, Russell Tovey (Narrator) 3.80 avg rating — 5 ratings — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Black Beauty Pop Up 4.50 avg rating — 4 ratings — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

More books by Anna Sewell…

Quotes by Anna Sewell (?)

“It is good people who make good places.”
― Anna Sewell, Black Beauty

tags: attitude, genius-loci, goodness, people, places, spirit, warmth, welcoming

1714 likes

“If they strain me up tight, why, let 'em look out! I can't bear it, and I won't.”
― Anna Sewell , Black Beauty

551 likes

“We call them dumb animals, and so they are, for they cannot tell us how they feel, but they do not suffer less because they have no words.”
― Anna Sewell, Black Beauty

267 likes

See all Anna Sewell's quotes »

Polls

February 2015 Old School Classics Poll

Which book would you like to read for our February 2015 Old School Classics group read?

1887, The Canterville Ghost by Oscar Wilde, 126 pages

10 votes, 20.0%

1899, The Awakening by Kate Chopin, 195 pages

8 votes, 16.0%

1818, Persuasion by Jane Austen, 249 pages

6 votes, 12.0%

1864, Notes from Underground by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, 233 pages

5 votes, 10.0%

800, Beowulf: A New Verse Translation by Unknown, 213 pages

5 votes, 10.0%

1853, Bleak House by Charles Dickens, 1017 pages

4 votes, 8.0%

1893, The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle, 321 pages

4 votes, 8.0%

1871, Carmilla by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, 108 pages

3 votes, 6.0%

1767, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne, 588 pages

2 votes, 4.0%

1782, Les Liaisons Dangereuses by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos, 448 pages

2 votes, 4.0%

1795, Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 396 pages

1 vote, 2.0%

1877, Black Beauty by Anna Sewell, 245 pages

0 votes, 0.0%

50 total votes

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Anna Sewell’s Followers (689)

Anna Sewell

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Anna Sewell’s books