Anna Sewell

Anna Sewell was an English novelist born into a Quaker family in Norfolk. The daughter of children’s author Mary Wright Sewell, she spent her life living with her parents in Sussex, Gloucestershire, and Norfolk, and she assisted her mother by editing her books and participating in charitable work. She never married and lived as an invalid due to a chronic illness, which necessitated trips to spa resorts throughout England and continental Europe.

Sewell is best known for her only book, Black Beauty, a novel about a horse. She wrote the work between 1871 and 1877, and it was published just a few months before her death.