Black Beauty

Anna Sewell was a British writer. She wrote Black Beauty in the last years of her life and the novel was published just five months before her death. She would never know how successful the novel would become or how instrumental it was in bringing about reforms in laws and attitudes towards animal welfare. Black Beauty remains to this day one of the most famous animal stories of all time. It has sold an estimated 50 million copies since its publication 140 years ago. Christian Birmingham is a British illustrator and artist who has illustrated Whitbread Children's Book of the Year†The Wreck of the Zanzibar†and Smarties prize-winning†The Butterfly Lion, both by Michael Morpurgo. His illustrated edition of†The Night Before Christmas†has sold 1.5 million copies worldwide.