Black Beauty by Anna Sewell
Dear Readers, I believe that the books that we read when we’re growing up can change the way that we look at the world, and so today I wanted to mention one of my favourites, Anna Sewell’s Black Beauty. I was an urban child who grew up in the East End of London, and I swear that I had never seen a real live horse , but this didn’t stop me being completely and utterly obsessed by them.The man in the corner shop, Mr Battel, had a plastic model of a horse that advertised White Horse whisky. It took pride of place in the big window, illuminated by a single spotlight, and I would gaze at it with such love that one day Mr Battel took pity and gave it to me.
White Horse Whisky (Photo One)
This was the start of a collection of plastic model horses. I had just learned to knit, so I made them not only full sets of medieval chainmail(for jousting) but trouser suits for as well (and if you’ve never seen a plastic horse in a cerise flared trouser suit then I have to say that you’ve never lived). The horses used to share the bed with me , in spite of their being cold and rather unyielding. Thinking about it now, I suspect that I just wanted to keep everything safe and snug. I have always hated it when someone or something is omitted from the proceedings: I was familiar even at this early age with being the ‘odd one out’, so it felt important that everyone was included, even if they were a bit difficult to cuddle.
And yet, it wasn’t until I read Black Beauty that the idea of the horse as a creature that might have complex emotions, just like me, began to coalesce. What a difficult read this book is for a sensitive child! I know people sometimes complain about the issues raised in Young Adult books these days, but the animal cruelty and the realism about the short, hard lives of working horses was devastating to me. And, indeed, Sewell didn’t write the book for children; she wanted adults to know about the mistreatment of the horses that she saw on the streets eveery day. Sewell wrote ‘Black Beauty’ in the last months of her life when she was confined to her house as an invalid; as a child she had broken both her ankles in an accident and the medical care she received afterwards was inadequate, leaving her with a permanent disability that became worse towards the end of her life. It’s difficult not to see Sewell’s injuries as parallel to those that occur when Black Beauty has a fall, which damages his knees and brings him into a cycle of harder and harder work. This book has been called the ‘most influential anti-cruelty novel’ of all time.
Anthropomorphism has a bad name these days, but anyone who has ever owned a pet, or worked with animals, knows that although they aren’t the same as human beings, they can feel many of the same things. I have seen my cat afraid, befuddled, curious, anxious, relaxed, , happy and mischievous, often in the space of half an hour. I find it difficult to comprehend how, knowing this, people can torment animals or ignore their similarity to us, although I suppose it the cruelty isn’t that surprising, considering how easy it seems to be to put aside the desperate need of members of our own species. I wept when Black Beauty sees his friend Ginger’s body passing on its way to the knacker’s yard, and it filled me with such rage that, aged eight, I wrote and illustrated a little book on ‘riding and stable management’, full of advice on how to tie a halter and full of information about what proportion of oats were appropriate at what times of year.
No, I still hadn’t seen a horse.
But then, when I was about ten, we went on holiday and Dad noticed that there was something that might interest me nearby. So, we all crammed into the Ford Popular and headed off. It wasn’t until I saw the sign for Shire Horse farm that I realised that my Dad (who never did anything by halves) had found somewhere that had the largest horses in the world. I will never forget the way that the ground thundered as the horses galloped around the paddock, the feeling of fear as one approached, looming larger and large, and the joy as he delicately took an apple from the palm of my hand and crunched the whole thing in a single bite. I remember how delicate the skin on his neck was as it twitched to get rid of the flies, and the size of his feet, bigger than dinner plates.
And somehow I still loved horses, but the idea of riding them no longer appealed. It seemed to me that these creatures were somehow too magnificent to be used to carry lumpen humans around. They seemed too good for us, somehow. How blessed we are to live on this planet and to be surrounded by such extraordinary creatures, and how easy it is to take it for granted. I sometimes think that if we saw the true wonder and complexity of the world that we live on, it would cleave us in two like lightning.
Photo Two
Photo Credits
Photo Two from https://www.globetrotting.com.au/horse-breed-shire-horse/
‘Black Beauty’: a must read, I think. I have encouraged my eldest granddaughter to do so – she has started the ‘Anne of Green Gables’ series, so I am hoping she will. This was one of the first books that made me weep – I too had not yet ‘met’ horses when I read it, yet have never forgotten it. [An interesting aside: the book was banned in this country at one time by the Nationalist government – probably based on the title for if anyone had actually read it they would have known better! This is a strange place to live at times!] I wonder if you have read the historical novel by Richard Adams called ‘Traveller’, which tells of the American Civil War through the viewpoint of Traveller, the favourite horse of Confederate General Robert E. Lee. It is worth reading if you haven’t.
Ah, thanks for the heads up Anne. I also liked ‘I am the Great Horse’ which was about Alexander the Great’s horse Bucephalus (by Katherine Roberts). I read it when I had chicken pox as an adult, it was the perfect convalescent read….
I, too, loved Black Beauty even though it always made me cry. Sewell draws the reader into the horse’s world completely and I’ve never forgotten the horror of Ginger’s death – I think it was the first death I ever read about.
I know, it’s so heart-breaking isn’t it?
As soon as I saw this photo of the Black Beauty cover, I was transported back to my childhood bedroom, where I was surrounded by the books I loved. Black Beauty made a great impression of me, and many of the episodes in the story of his life have stayed in my memory.
I love the idea of a plastic horse wearing a cerise flared trouser suit – my sister had an Action Girl toy (companion of the more famous Action Man) who had a suit just like that!
That’s beautiful – thanks!
Michael Morpurgo’s novel ‘War Horse’ (and the Spielberg film of it) is also heart rending. An homage to Sewell. For some reason we had a plastic white horse in our house, but it had no logo and wasn’t treated as kindly as yours.
You mean you never knitted your horse a trouser suit? I’m shocked. 🙂
I still have a copy of Black Beauty that my mother won as a prize for achievement at school, which must make it pretty old! I did read it as a child but not since – I can’t read books with animal cruelty in them these days – and it was one of my formative influences. I loved horses – we were lucky to have a few fields near our housing estate that had horses, we couldn’t afford things like riding lessons but at least I could visit them.
No, I find animal cruelty in books or on television impossible to watch.
I just love this It made me laugh and it made me remember my tears when I read Black Beauty. I was such a coward, I could only read it once. But I never forgot.
I think I only read it once too, Gert, but as you say, it stays with you.
I wonder if kids today, in an overwhelmingly visual culture, get those formative emotional experiences from books? For me, it was Black Beauty, too, and The Little Mermaid. Most traditional fairy/folk tales have harsh ingredients, tough to digest but necessary, I feel.