CHILDREN'S LITERATURE STUDIES: GENERAL. The children's novel "Black Beauty" is estimated to have sold over thirty million copies. Yet before Susan Chitty's classic biography was first published in 1971, little was known about its author, the horse-lover who wrote her only book in her fifties and did not live to know of its colossal success. As well as penning what became probably the most successful animal story ever written, Anna Sewell is credited with being the greatest single influence in promoting humane treatment of horses. Her extraordinary life is chronicled in this fascinating biography, updated for the twenty-first century in this beautiful edition, from the tragic accident that left her lame from the age of 14 to the writing of her best-selling novel from her death bed.