Anna Sewell (1820–1878)

Anna Sewell was the daughter of popular English poet and children's writer Mary Sewell and her husband Isaac, devout Quakers. Anna was disabled as the result of a childhood injury and was confined to home for much of her life. She helped edit her mother's works. In 1845, the family moved to Lancing in West Sussex, and it may have been here, with the acquisition of a pony chaise, that Anna developed her love of horses. Her only published novel was Black Beauty (1877), but its lasting fame and popularity is so great as to make her one of the all-time bestselling writers. It was published when she was 57 years old, and she died five months later.