Black Beauty, by Anna Sewell, was published in 1877, only a year before the author's death. Written from the animal's point of view, it sells the story of a working horse in Victorian England. Black Beauty has to adapt to life with a series of different masters and grooms, some of them kindly but many of them cruel or thoughtless. He survives flood, fire and fever until he feels ready to die, but then he is taken to yet another horse sale. This title is part of a wonderful series that offers a quick way into a range of exciting stories. Fast-moving and accessible, each story is a shortened, dramatically illustrated version of the classic novel, which loses none of the strength and flavour of the original. This ELT edition of the series is available for the first time with an accompanying audio CD and has a full glossary at the back of the book. Comprehension, vocabulary and language activities are available on www.fasttrackclassics.com. Level: Intermediate CEF B1 ALTE Level 2
This book features in the following series: Essential Classics, Express Classics .
There are 48 pages in this book. This book was published 2013 by ReadZone Books Limited .
Anna Sewell (1820-78) was a British novelist. Black Beauty was her only published work. Pauline Francis's books include Drake's Drummer Boy, The Little Giant: the Story of Isambard Kingdom Brunel and Television Man: the Story of John Logie Baird. Jane Tattersfield has illustrated three books accompanying television series: The India File, Celebrating India and Stories of Faith, as well as some of the Dress Sense costume books for Belitha Press.
This book contains the following story:
Black Beauty
When he comes of age, the horse Black Beauty is sold to a grand house to be a carriage horse. The groom, Joe, is kind but his masters are cruel. Every day Beauty and his fellow horse, Ginger, are shackled to the carriage with a tight bearing rein to keep their heads held high, and the two horses are whipped and generally mistreated. When Ginger misbehaves she is taken away. When Beauty smashes his knee he is sold to a London cabby. Pulling a cab through all the weather is hard work but Jerry is kind to Beauty and he is happy. Then Jerry is offered a job as groom by a customer and has to sell Beauty. His next master is harsh and cruel. But then Black Beauty is rescued by a horse doctor and at the doctors stables he discovers that the groom is none other than Joe. Beauty lives out the rest of his life in the doctors fields, happy and cared for.
This book has been nominated for the following award:
Bbc Book Awards
This book was recognised in the Big Read Top 100 category by the Bbc Book Awards.
