Anna Sewell was born in 1820 and lived with her family in Norfolk and then in a village on the outskirts of London. At the age of fourteen Anna injured her ankles in a fall, and was severely disabled for the rest of her life.

She had to travel everywhere in horse-drawn carriages, and so Anna was always concerned with the treatment of the animals she so relied upon.

She wrote Black Beauty in order to convince a wide audience of the importance of the humane treatment of animals. It is her only novel, and Anna Sewell died shortly after it's publication, little guessing how well-known and widely loved her story would become.

Susan Hill has been a professional writer for over fifty years. Her books have won awards and prizes including the Whitbread, the John Llewellyn Rhys and the Somerset Maugham, and have been shortlisted for the Booker.

She was awarded a CBE in the Queen's Diamond Jubilee Honours. Her novels include Strange Meeting, I’m the King of the Castle, In the Springtime of the Year and A Kind Man. She has also published autobiographical works and collections of short stories as well as the Simon Serrailler series of crime novels.

The play of her ghost story The Woman in Black has been running in London’s West End since 1988. She has two adult daughters and lives in North Norfolk.