Sewell, AnnaAnna Sewell was born in 1820 into a Quaker family whose respect for horses was out of step with the common view of the time, that animals should be worked until they dropped. Disabled in a fall aged 14, Anna lived all her life with her parents but became an expert carriage driver and, as editor and stern critic, helped her mother, Mary Wright Sewell, become a successful author of evangelical children's books. Anna wrote Black Beauty, her only book, in the last years of her life, as a plea for more humane treatment of horses. She died in 1878, a year after the novel was published to wide acclaim.John, Lauren StLauren St John grew up surrounded by horses, cats, dogs and a pet giraffe on a farm and game reserve in Zimbabwe, Africa, the inspiration for her bestselling White Giraffe series. At seventeen, she spent a year working in the UK as a veterinary nurse before becoming a sports and music journalist. Dead Man's Cove, the first in her Laura Marlin Mysteries series, won the 2011 Blue Peter Book of the Year Award. She is also the author of the Kat Wolfe series. A passionate conservationist, Lauren is an ambassador for the Born Free Foundation and founder of the Authors4Oceans anti-plastics campaign. When not writing or rescuing leopards, she is a full-time valet to her not-in-the-least-demanding Bengal cat, Max.

Through the eyes of Black Beauty, Anna Sewell opens our hearts to the welfare of working animals in this tale of adversity and altruism, featuring illustrations by Cecil Aldin and an afterword by author Lauren St. John

Through the eyes of Black Beauty, Anna Sewell opens our hearts to the welfare of working animals in this tale of adversity and altruism, featuring illustrations by Cecil Aldin and an afterword by author Lauren St. John.

Designed to appeal to the booklover, the Macmillan Collector's Library is a series of beautiful gift editions of much loved classic titles. Macmillan Collector's Library are books to love and treasure. This edition of Black Beauty features illustrations by Cecil Aldin and an afterword by author and conservationist Lauren St. John.

Black Beauty enjoys a carefree upbringing in a pleasant meadow with his mother, where his gentle first master trains him well - until he is reluctantly forced to sell him. Through a long and varied life, Black Beauty passes from one owner to the next; some treat him well, others are so cruel that they inflict lasting damage.

Anna Sewell's biographical novel about a horse is one of the bestselling books of all time, and her depiction of Victorian society's harsh treatment of animals inspired significant changes to animal welfare in both the UK and America.