Black Beauty, a young colt, is raised with love and care by his benevolent master, Farmer Grey. Once he grows up to be a handsome stallion, due to a cruel twist of fate, his master is forced to sell him. Leaving his carefree days on an English farm behind, Black Beauty soon finds himself in the hands of several ruthless owners and carriage drivers in London. Battling the bitterness of his masters, he yearns to return to the freedom and comforts of his country life. Black Beauty, the autobiography of a horse, was written during the last seven years of Anna Sewells life. A testimony to her outrage against the ill-treatment of horses in Victorian England and her empathy for animals, it remains an evergreen classic.