Black Beauty is an 1877 novel by English author Anna Sewell. The novel became an immediate best-seller, with Sewell dying just five months after its publication, but 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. As the horse encounters new experiences and new friends who reveal their own histories, the story quietly paints a fascinating portrait of how animals were treated during that era.ABOUT THE AUTHOR:Anna Sewell's only published work was Black Beauty, written during 1871 to 1877, after she had moved to Old Catton, a village outside the city of Norwich in Norfolk. During this time her health was declining. She was often so weak that she was confined to her bed and writing was a challenge. She dictated the text to her mother and from 1876 began to write on slips of paper which her mother then transcribed.