Anna Sewell's animal welfare novel Black Beauty is published.
Black Beauty: His Grooms and Companions, the Autobiography of a Horse is an 1877 novel by English author Anna Sewell. It was composed in the last years of her life, during which she was bedridden and seriously ill. The novel became an immediate best-seller, with Sewell dying just five months after its publication, but having lived long enough to see her only novel become a success. With fifty million copies sold, Black Beauty is one of the best-selling books of all time.While forthrightly teaching animal welfare, it also teaches how to treat people with kindness, sympathy, and respect. In 2003, the novel was listed at number 58 on the BBC's survey The Big Read. It is seen as a forerunner of the pony book.
Anna Sewell (; 30 March 1820 – 25 April 1878) was an English novelist. She is known as the author of the 1877 novel Black Beauty, her only published work, which is considered one of the top ten best selling novels for children, although the author intended the work for an adult audience. Sewell died only five months after Black Beauty's publication, having lived long enough to see her only novel become a success.