![Black Beauty: His Grooms and Companions. The Autobiography of a Horse.
Anna Sewell. London, Jarrold & Sons, 1877.
First edition, wood-engraved frontispiece, 8pp. advertisements, original pictorial blue cloth stamped in black and gilt, front cover with horse’s head in gilt looking left within medallion, spine in gilt and black with raised lettering, [Carter’s C binding], morocco-backed fitted case.
An unusually fine copy of the phenomenally successful classic children’s book, the Quaker author’s only publication, written during periods of ill health between 1871 and 1877, often through dictation to the author’s mother. 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 author died just five months after publication.
“Anna Sewell has been neglected by history. In ironic contrast, her only book has achieved phenomenal success. Pirated in America in 1890, its sales broke publishing records. It is said to be ‘the sixth best seller in the English language’” [(E.B. Wells and A. Grimshaw, The annotated ‘Black Beauty’,1989)] (Adrienne E. Gavin, Oxford DNB).](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_la4x5yQSIr1qabm59o1_500.jpg)
Black Beauty: His Grooms and Companions. The Autobiography of a Horse.
Anna Sewell. London, Jarrold & Sons, 1877.
First edition, wood-engraved frontispiece, 8pp. advertisements, original pictorial blue cloth stamped in black and gilt, front cover with horse’s head in gilt looking left within medallion, spine in gilt and black with raised lettering, [Carter’s C binding], morocco-backed fitted case.
An unusually fine copy of the phenomenally successful classic children’s book, the Quaker author’s only publication, written during periods of ill health between 1871 and 1877, often through dictation to the author’s mother. 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 author died just five months after publication.
“Anna Sewell has been neglected by history. In ironic contrast, her only book has achieved phenomenal success. Pirated in America in 1890, its sales broke publishing records. It is said to be ‘the sixth best seller in the English language’” [(E.B. Wells and A. Grimshaw, The annotated ‘Black Beauty’,1989)] (Adrienne E. Gavin, Oxford DNB).
