Anna Sewell was an English novelist, best known as the author of the classic novel
Black BeautyBlack Beauty is an 1877 novel by English author Anna Sewell. It was composed in the last years of her life, during which she remained in her house as an invalid. The novel became an immediate bestseller, with Sewell dying just five months after its publication, long enough to see her first and only...
.
Biography
Anna Mary Sewell was born in
Great YarmouthGreat Yarmouth, often known to locals as Yarmouth, is a coastal town in Norfolk, England. It is at the mouth of the River Yare, east of Norwich.It has been a seaside resort since 1760, and is the gateway from the Norfolk Broads to the sea...
, Norfolk, England into a devoutly Quaker family. Her father was Isaac Phillip Sewell (1793–1879), and her mother,
Mary Wright SewellMary Wright Sewell was the mother of Anna Sewell a very well known children's author who wrote Black Beauty. Mary, less known today, was a then-popular author of juvenile bestsellers....
(1798–1884) was a successful author of children's books.
Anna Sewell had one sibling, a younger brother named Philip Sewell.
Anna Sewell was largely educated at home. When Anna was twelve years old, the family moved to
Stoke NewingtonStoke Newington is a district in the London Borough of Hackney. It is north-east of Charing Cross.-Boundaries:In modern terms, Stoke Newington can be roughly defined by the N16 postcode area . Its southern boundary with Dalston is quite ill-defined too...
, where Sewell attended school for the first time. Two years later, however, she slipped while walking home from school and severely injured both of her ankles. Her father took a job in
BrightonBrighton is the major part of the city of Brighton and Hove in East Sussex, England on the south coast of Great Britain...
in 1836, partly in the hope that the climate there would help to cure her. Despite this, and most likely because of mistreatment of her injury, for the rest of her life Anna was unable to stand without a crutch or to walk for any length of time. For greater mobility, she frequently used horse-drawn carriages, which contributed to her love of
horseThe horse is one of two extant subspecies of Equus ferus, or the wild horse. It is a single-hooved mammal belonging to the taxonomic family Equidae. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million years from a small multi-toed creature into the large, single-toed animal of today...
s and concern for the humane treatment of animals.
At about this time, both Anna and her mother left the Society of Friends to join the
Church of EnglandThe Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England and the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The church considers itself within the tradition of Western Christianity and dates its formal establishment principally to the mission to England by St...
, though both remained active in evangelical circles. Her mother expressed her religious faith most noticeably by authoring a series of evangelical children's books, which Anna helped to edit, though all the Sewells, and Mary Sewell's family, the Wrights, engaged in many other good works.
While seeking to improve her health in Europe, Sewell encountered various writers, artists, and philosophers, to which her previous background had not exposed her.
Sewell's only published work was
Black BeautyBlack Beauty is an 1877 novel by English author Anna Sewell. It was composed in the last years of her life, during which she remained in her house as an invalid. The novel became an immediate bestseller, with Sewell dying just five months after its publication, long enough to see her first and only...
, written during 1871 to 1877, after she had moved to
Old CattonOld Catton is a suburban village and civil parish in the English county of Norfolk which lies to the north-east of central Norwich. The parish is bounded by the Norwich International Airport at Hellesdon to the west and Sprowston to the east...
, a village outside the city of
NorwichNorwich is a city in England. It is the regional administrative centre and county town of Norfolk. During the 11th century, Norwich was the largest city in England after London, and one of the most important places in the kingdom...
in Norfolk. During this time her health was declining. She was often so weak that she was confined to her bed and writing was a challenge. She dictated the text to her mother and from 1876 began to write on slips of paper which her mother then transcribed.
Sewell sold the novel to local publisher
JarroldsJarrolds is a large, family run department store in Norwich, England. It is situated at the corner of Exchange Street and London Street. The business was founded in 1770 in Woodbridge in Suffolk, moving to Norwich in 1823. The current building was designed by George John Skipper between 1903-5...
on 24 November 1877, when she was 57 years of age. 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".
Sewell died of
hepatitisHepatitis is a medical condition defined by the inflammation of the liver and characterized by the presence of inflammatory cells in the tissue of the organ. The name is from the Greek hepar , the root being hepat- , meaning liver, and suffix -itis, meaning "inflammation"...
or phthisis on 25 April 1878, five months after her book was published, living long enough to see the book's initial success. She was buried on 30 April 1878 in the Quaker burial-ground at
LammasLammas is a village in Broadland, Norfolk, England. Administratively it falls within the civil parish of Buxton with Lammas.-Location:...
near
Buxton, NorfolkBuxton is a village in Norfolk, located between Norwich and Aylsham. The village is mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1085. Buxton is adjacent to the village of Lammas. The two villages are separated by the River Bure at Buxton Mill but are otherwise indistinguishable...
, not far from Norwich, where a wall plaque now marks her resting place.
Her birthplace in Church Plain, Great Yarmouth, is now a museum.