Black Beauty

Christian Birmingham’s stunning new colour edition of Anna Sewell’s classic tale is complete and unabridged, and the narrative voice of Black Beauty as fresh as the day the story was first published in 1877.


This enchanting story of the bravery of a horse in Victorian Britain has captivated and enthralled so many generations of readers. Step back in time and see the world through Black Beauty’s gentle and patient eyes, as he enjoys the pleasures and the hardships that fell to horses living in the nineteenth century. Meet the compassionate heroes and hard-hearted rascals whom Beauty encounters during his life and, above all, experience what it is to be a horse – to gallop on the soft grass and to hear a kind word in a moment of great need. It is truly a story you will never forget.

Anna Sewell was born in Great Yarmouth in 1820. When she was just 14 years old she suffered a serious ankle injury that left her unable to walk without crutches for the rest of her life. She depended on carriages for travelling and this led her to a lifelong love of horses and a concern for their welfare. She hoped that, by writing Black Beauty, she could change the hearts and minds of those people who lived alongside horses and encouraged them to improve the lives of all animals in their care. Anna Sewell died just a few months after her only book was published so never fully learned how successful her story would become, or how it helped pave the way for the first animal welfare laws. Today Black Beauty is the best-loved animal story of all time, having sold an estimated fifty million copies worldwide.


Christian Birmingham is the critically acclaimed illustrator of Whitbread Children’s Book of the Year The Wreck of the Zanzibar and Smarties Prize winner The Butterfly Lion. He was also shortlisted for the Kurt Maschler Award and Kate Greenaway Medal for illustration. He graduated from Exeter College of Art and Design in 1991 with a first-class honours degree in Graphic Design (illustration). He has been passionate about drawing horses since being inspired in his youth by the paintings of Degas, Stubbs and Munnings.

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