Black Beauty (1877) is a groundbreaking novel by English author Anna Sewell, uniquely narrated in the first person from the perspective of a horse. Sewell, who was bedridden and seriously ill, wrote the book between 1871 and 1877, and it became an immediate best-seller, selling over fifty million copies to become one of the best-selling books of all time. The story follows the titular horse from his carefree days as a foal through the hardships of pulling cabs in London to his happy retirement, recounting tales of both cruelty and kindness. While teaching animal welfare, the novel was instrumental in abolishing the painful practice of the checkrein (or bearing rein) and is considered a forerunner of the pony book genre. Sewell died just five months after its publication in April 1878, but lived long enough to see her only novel become a massive success.