Welcome to the LitCharts study guide on Anna Sewell's Black Beauty. Created by the original team behind SparkNotes, LitCharts are the world's best literature guides.
Black Beauty: Introduction
Black Beauty: Plot Summary
Black Beauty: Detailed Summary & Analysis
Black Beauty: Themes
Black Beauty: Quotes
Black Beauty: Characters
Black Beauty: Symbols
Black Beauty: Literary Devices
Black Beauty: Theme Wheel
Brief Biography of Anna Sewell
Historical Context of Black Beauty
Other Books Related to Black Beauty
- Full Title: Black Beauty
- When Written: 1871–1877
- Where Written: Old Catton, England
- When Published: 1877
- Literary Period: Victorian
- Genre: Children’s Novel, Social Problem Novel
- Setting: Mid-19th century England
- Climax: Black Beauty is reunited with Joe Green.
- Antagonist: Cruelty, fashion, various human characters
- Point of View: First Person
Extra Credit for Black Beauty
Modern Horse Jobs. Today, horses are used mostly for recreational purposes, but there are still a handful of jobs for working horses with police forces, ranchers, film productions, and breweries, to name a few. Horses can also be a good way for people to access places where motorized vehicles cannot go, so the forest service and some tourism companies use horses to access remote rural areas. Some horses are even trained to track missing persons or narcotics by following a scent.
Bearing Reins Today. Bearing reins—which are known as checkreins today—still exist in various forms, though they aren’t used for the same purpose that they were in the Victorian era. Some people who still drive horses use a rein called a side check or overcheck to keep a horse from lowering its head below the level of the shafts, which ensures a horse’s harness doesn’t get tangled and cause an accident (a major concern, as driving accidents are far more dangerous than riding accidents). Grass reins are another modern descendent of the bearing rein. They keep ponies ridden by inexperienced riders from grazing on grass.