Black Beauty: The Autobiography of a Horse

Anna Sewell (1820–1878) was born in England. A knee injury at fourteen left her disabled, but she rode and drove horses very well. She began learning about horses early in life, spending many hours driving her father to and from the station from which he commuted to work. Her dependence on horse-drawn transportation fostered her respect of horses. She wrote her one book, Black Beauty, in her fifties, and it was published in 1877 just five months before she died. Although it is now considered a children’s classic, she originally wrote it for those who worked with horses. She said “a special aim [was] to induce kindness, sympathy, and an understanding treatment of horses.” The book has had a tremendous impact in creating a new wave of humane thinking towards animals.

Geoffrey Howard (a.k.a. Ralph Cosham) (1936–2014) was a British journalist who changed careers to become a narrator and screen and stage actor. He performed in more than one hundred professional theatrical roles. His audiobook narrations were named “Audio Best of the Year” by Publishers Weekly, and he won seven AudioFile Earphones Awards, and in 2013 he won the coveted Audie Award for Best Mystery Narration for his reading of Louise Penny’s The Beautiful Mystery.