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    Black Beauty
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    Black Beauty
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    Black Beauty
    Ebook206 pages3 hours

    Black Beauty

    By Anna Sewell

    4.5/5

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    About this ebook

    The narrator of this book, the handsome, coal-black horse called ''Black Beauty'', is lead through numerous adventures by various owners - from a riding and carriage horse, to the rough life of a town cab horse, to eventual happiness in a secure home, he keeps his strength and good temper. Influential as animal-rights propaganda, this tale is also an extremely exciting and moving children's story.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSheba Blake Publishing
    Release dateMay 18, 2015
    ISBN9781304097798
    Author

    Anna Sewell

    Anna Sewell was born in Norfolk, England. In 1871, she was told she had only a few months to live, but she spent the next five years writing Black Beauty. She lived to see it published in 1877.

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    Reviews for Black Beauty

    4.5/5

    71 ratings76 reviews

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    • 4/5
      This was surprisingly good. A very nice story!
    • 4/5
      I've read this book three times over the years. It's always been one of my favourites, first as I like horses, and second as it's even better when the horses are doing the talking.The book tells the story of the life of a horse from youth to old age, and the good and bad events that follow him. Through his eyes and occasional commentary you see people and animals of different attitudes and opinions. While Sewell was adressing the poor treatment of animals by people, she also acknowledges that there are good people and sometimes bad people have reasons for being the way they are though the eyes of the horse.The story is, at some points, quite miserable, but the end is heartening and it forces us to look at things from the perspective of the animals we work and live with.
    • 2/5
      I can't even finish this thing. It is dull as dirt. I cannot imagine a child being captivated by this story. If this was my first novel as a child, I probably would never have picked up another. Sorry, I like literature for children, but this one didn't do it for me.
    • 4/5
      Read first time as an adult, a bit surprised at how morbid it is. Dawned on me that carousel horses look like they do because they most have been modeled on horses rigged with a bearing rein.
    • 4/5
      A fun trip through Victorian London through the eyes of a horse.
    • 4/5
      an undated edition given me by my grandparents on my birthday in1957. I suspect that I never read it, because I just did so and did not remember anything. The autobiography of a horse, interesting for the social commentary and especially the life of London cabbies.
    • 4/5
      Black Beauty, a horse, tells about his life beginning as a young colt in the English countryside. Each chapter teaches a moral lesson on topics such as kindness, sympathy, and understanding, all related to the treatment of horses. Black Beauty describes his hard life pulling cabs in London as well as the end of his life and retiring in the country. Although this is a children's novel, the book inspired other works about the cruel treatment of horses and other animals. This is a sad, yet sweet story about the hard life of a horse. I would recommend it to others. It is a true classic and will continue to be loved by generations to come, making us aware that animals have thoughts and feelings too. Children who love animals, especially horses should read this book.
    • 5/5
      Black Beauty is a great book about a horse. This story starts when he is a foal and goes through his ups and downs of his life as a horse. I love horses and I love this book. I could read this book over and over. Even though you probably would not think about how long a horse lives and what kind of life one would have and this story is all about that.I would really like to read this book to my students. I think they would really like it. I would love to do a unit over horses and read other horse books. I could have them write a little story about a horse or have them draw horse.
    • 5/5
      It starts when beauty was a colt with his mother at his first home. His mother told him never to bite or kick anyone.
    • 5/5
      What a beautiful story with a simple, yet hearth-wrenching narrative.
    • 3/5
      Lovely but somewhat melodramatic. Unfortunately I have read this classic too late (I am a grown up now). I would have loved this when I was 9. Sometimes it made me very very sad (Ginger made me sad). Keep your hankies ready (not joking).Sadly there are still a lot of "black beauties" these days.
    • 5/5
      A good book told from a Horse point of view. You should read this!
    • 4/5
      Sewell wrote a marvelous story about a horse in a man's world. The elegant writing style brought forth beautiful images. Being a horse isn't all fabulous and trotting about, as I had previously assumed. Not just for children, a classic. Worth the read.
    • 5/5
      This is one of my favourite childhood books. The story of a horse told in first person, recording his adventures good and bad.Ideal for children who love animals, a classic that has stood the test of time.
    • 3/5
      This is a beautifully bound edition of Anna Sewell's classic story. I re-read it because I intend to give it to my grand-daughter. Black Beauty is told from the horse's perspective and contains a lot of information about how horses were used and treated 200 years ago. I think it has stood the test of the time because it is so evocative of an era.
    • 2/5
      Well, it's definitely about a horse.This was a book assigned as reading in either fifth grade or sixth grade. Anyway, it was never finished, not sure why. The reading unit moved onto something else that didn't involve silent reading. Maybe policies changed. Anyway, it falls under the category of so many other books I've read. It's just boring and out of date. If you like horses, there's a lot of detail about how horses were treated and all the equipment and things you don't think of, like having to brush down a horse of its sweat after a hard ride or it'll get pneumonia. But it's lacking any overall plot, any overall story arc or obstacle or goal. It's just a horse living. More interesting things happen to its owners, but the horse doesn't get to hear about that because it's in the barn.The only reason I can think to read it is if you were SUPER into horses. Most classics are classics because they've got some themes that relate to today. I'm having trouble seeing where the equivalents are for beasts of burden. Just about everything we used to use horses for are now done by cars and trucks. Horses are now pets or show animals (or merchandise for princess dolls), and thus, rarely mistreated. I think there are better "talking animal" books out there that fit our society today.
    • 5/5
      A fascinating look into human behavior both good and bad."Through the eyes of Black Beauty, we observe the actions of human beings. The gallant horse is sold to many types of people. Some are good masters who treat Beauty with compassion and tenderness. Others are bad masters, who do not care if Beauty has enough food to eat or if he is too tired to be ridden."You know, this is one of my all-time favorite stories. When I was very young I had a cartoon version of this story that I watched constantly. I now own the live-action film. I know the story like the back of my had. But I'd never read the book... til now!Both utterly sad and depressing as well as joyous and triumphant, this book has an amazing story to tell. This is definitely one that pulls on your heart strings. Perfect for teens and young adult readers as well as adults. I highly recommend this classic tale to everyone who loves animals of any kind.
    • 5/5
      I think black beauty is the best story I ever read I never wanted it to end. From the begining that black beauty met his friends to the adventures he had with them I was trapped in the book and couldn't stop. I think that probably not many 9 year-olds have read Black Beauty. So Black Beauty is a young horse who is very polite because his mother had taught him well while the other fillies where horsing around. Black Beauty has grown up with great owners and not so great owners. He totally knows who is good and who is bad. When he get sold to other people he usually sees his friends around town. I personally thought the ending was sweet and I will never forget his story.
    • 2/5
      Filled with didactic moralizing...also, Black Beauty was a total Mary Sue. I would say this is one of those books that's best read only in childhood, but then again it also contains a lot of horse abuse and death that I would have found very sad as a child.
    • 4/5
      I have never been able to read this book without tears.
    • 4/5
      Considering I've always been a lover of animals and badly wanted to ride horses as a little girl, I'm surprised that I hadn't gotten around to this book much earlier in life. Originally published in 1877, the story follows Black Beauty, so named by one of his owners, from his carefree youth as a colt in a farm while still under his mother's tutelage, and through the better part of his life, as he passes from one owner to the next with conditions often going from bad to worse to unbearable, notably when he is forced to (over)work as a cab horse in London. Black Beauty narrates his story in the first person, and while I enjoyed having the horse's point of view, I was annoyed by the extent of anthropomorphising, with our narrator seemingly able to understand human speech and reasoning, and have a wide range of all too human feelings too, which might be acceptable for a young reader, but not for this adult, though interestingly enough, it seems that Sewell did not write the novel for children. The story makes repeated allusions to the mistreatment of animals, and horses in particular, and seemed in parts overly moralistic, though as another LT member pointed out to me, it was the first work of fiction advocating the humane treatment of horses. According to wikipedia "[Sewell] said that her purpose in writing the novel was "to induce kindness, sympathy, and an understanding treatment of horses"—an influence she attributed to an essay on animals she read earlier by Horace Bushnell (1802–1876) entitled "Essay on Animals". Her sympathetic portrayal of the plight of working animals led to a vast outpouring of concern for animal welfare".
    • 5/5
      This book, in one form or another, has stayed on my shelf since I was a child. It has wonderful life lessons throughout the story and should be required reading of any child, horse crazy or not. It is a must for any child with a pony. It taught me to be kinder to my ponies. (As a result, they were much kinder to me.)
    • 5/5
      2005, Tantor Media, Read by Simon Vance“The first place that I can well remember was a large pleasant meadow with a pond of clear water in it. Some shady trees leaned over it, and rushes and water-lilies grew at the deep end. ” (Ch 1)I thoroughly enjoyed rereading this beautiful childhood classic, an autobiographical memoir narrated in first person by Black Beauty himself. Beauty tells his story, beginning with his carefree young life on an English farm with his mother, through his difficult years pulling cabs in London, and finally to his retirement in the English countryside. Along the way, he has met with much kindness but also with substantial cruelty. Sewell devotes each chapter to some moral lesson about the kind and understanding treatment of horses. Through Beauty's first person narration we gain insight into into the disposition and dignity of an animal well-treated. Conversely, we also come to understand some of the ways in which humans have caused horses to suffer needlessly, in the name of fashion, for instance, as with blinkers and bearing reins. It was Sewell’s intention, I suspect, given her admirable and passionate advocacy for the better treatment of horses, that young people might read Black Beauty’s story and come to effect change in the world that all animals might know kindness and compassion.“My doctrine is this, that if we see cruelty or wrong that we have the power to stop, and do nothing, we make ourselves sharers in the guilt.” (38)
    • 4/5
      One of the most beautiful stories of all time. Black Beuaty's journey is one that will touch the hardest heart.
    • 2/5
      I quite liked the book to begin with as I enjoyed all the tales of the humane treatment of animals. It did get a bit tiresome towards the end. The story does not really flow as the horse is passed from place to place.
    • 4/5
      This book possesses the rare quality of having a writing style that draws the reader in continuously. Sewell's ability to take the point of view of her equine characters and to describe their experiences in knowing detail is marvelous. The book suffers from an overly preachy tone at times, as there is only so much variety a horse can experience and thus the same types of scenarios seem to be gone over more than once. In places Sewell's Quaker faith is evident, as when she describes Old Captain's ambivalent feelings about war. In others, the debates on Christian morality that come before her characters are more likely to clash with some Christian readers' views. In particular, I did not follow the logic between successive chapters in which a character first refuses an entreaty to take work on a Sunday in order to drive a woman who is no longer able to walk to church, and then later accedes to his wife's request that he take another woman unable to walk the distance to go visit a dying relative on a Sunday. These episodes may find root in Sewell's own loss of mobility in life, but regardless, her theology is a bit questionable. She also seems to make no apologies for the character of Ginger "standing up for herself" through bad behaviour when mistreated, and allows the character to go on and on about how much better behaved she'd be if only others had treated her well. This novel thus strikes me as interesting and unusual in that it moves the reader to compassion for animal characters by endowing them with human-like emotional and mental capacities, but does not seem to hold them to the same moral standards of accountability or agency. The horses, thus, do not necessarily display in themselves a clear moral goal to which the young readers are expected to aspire. This does not make the book a bad one, but rather a more complex and interesting one, and while it is not a work I would give to young readers as a straightforward depiction of social equity and the obligations of man, it is definitely one worth leading young readers through with a critical, evaluative eye. A set of discussion questions and project ideas at the end of the Aladdin edition of this book may also help parents and teachers with this aim.
    • 4/5
      Book on CD narrated by Simon Vance.First published in 1877, this is the only novel written by Anna Sewel, but it has become a much-loved classic and one of the most widely read animal stories. Black Beauty tells his own story, from his early days as a colt frolicking with his friends and his mother, to learning to accept a bridle, saddle and rider, to being sold as a carriage horse, then to pulling a cab in London, and eventually to a happy country life once again.I had a copy of this book when I was a child; it was part of a set of classics that included works by Louisa May Alcott and Mark Twain (among others). But for some reason I never read it, even during my “horse crazy” phase. I’m so glad I finally got to it. It’s a timeless tale with a simple message: Be kind to everyone (and everything). Sewell manages to convey this through Beauty’s experiences, both good and bad. The hardcover text edition I got from the library was also beautifully illustrated by Lucy Kemp-Welch. There are several full-page full-color plates, as well as small ink drawings beginning each chapter. Simon Vance does a marvelous job voicing the audio version. He gives life to the story, without being overly dramatic. It’s a great book to “read aloud” and I highly recommend listening to it with your children or grandchildren.
    • 2/5

      Four out of ten.

      Black Beauty is the story of a spirited horse - a beautiful coal black stallion with a brilliant white star on his forehead. Follow Black Beauty's adventures from the peaceful green meadows of his youth to the cold, bitter streets of nineteenth-century London.

    • 4/5
      I read this and then I cried and cried and cried. And then I read it again. I was 8.
    • 5/5
      "A horse is a horse of course unless of course the horse is Black Beauty. Animal-loving children have been devoted to Black Beauty throughout this century, and no doubt will continue through the next. Although Anna Sewell's classic paints a clear picture of turn-of-the-century London, its message is universal and timeless: animals will serve humans well if they are treated with consideration and kindness.Black Beauty tells the story of the horse's own long and varied life, from a well-born colt in a pleasant meadow to an elegant carriage horse for a gentleman to a painfully overworked cab horse. Throughout, Sewell rails--in a gentle, 19th-century way--against animal maltreatment. Readers will follow Black Beauty's fortunes, good and bad, with gentle masters as well as cruel. Children can easily make the leap from horse-human relationships to human-human relationships, and begin to understand how their own consideration of others may be a benefit to all.