Black Beauty tells the story of the horse's own long and varied life, from a well-born colt in a pleasant meadow to an elegant carriage horse for a gentleman to a painfully overworked cab horse.

Throughout, Sewell rails - in a gentle, 19th-century manner - against animal maltreatment.

Readers will follow Black Beauty's fortunes, good and bad, with gentle masters as well as cruel.

Children can easily make the leap from horse-human relationships to human-human relationships, and begin to understand how their own consideration of others may be a benefit to all.

Illustrated by Cecil Aldin, with an Afterword by Ned Halley.