Black Beauty cover art

Black Beauty

The Autobiography of a Horse

Preview

Get this deal Try Premium Plus free
Offer ends April 30, 2025 at 23:59 GMT.
Prime logo Prime members: New to Audible? Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for £7.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Black Beauty

By: Anna Sewell
Narrated by: Ralph Cosham
Get this deal Try Premium Plus free

£7.99/mo after 3 months. Offer ends April 30, 2025 23:59 GMT. Cancel monthly.

£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £14.99

Buy Now for £14.99

Confirm Purchase
Pay using card ending in
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.
Cancel

About this listen

From its first publication in 1877, Black Beauty has been one of the best-loved animal stories ever written. The dramatic and heartwarming tale is told by the magnificent black horse himself, from his idyllic days on a country squire’s estate to his harsh fate as a London cab horse and his merciful rescue by two kindly old ladies.

Filled with vivid anecdotes about animal intelligence, the novel derives a special magic from the love of all creatures, great and small, apparent on every page. But the book’s lasting impact comes from its descriptions of a human society struggling to find the goodness within itself and its plea for kindness to all creatures - a message so powerful that this favorite classic began a crusade for animal welfare that continues to this day.

Anna Sewell was born in England in 1820. As a young girl, she witnessed great and frequent abuse of horses. A knee injury at 14 left her disabled, but she rode and drove horses very well, controlling them with voice alone, never a whip. She wrote Black Beauty in her 50s and died about a year after it was published in 1877. The book has had a tremendous impact in creating a new wave of humanist thinking towards animals.

©Public Domain (P)2011 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Action & Adventure Animals Animals & Nature Classics Fiction Literature & Fiction Heartfelt England

Listeners also enjoyed...

War Horse (40th Anniversary Edition) cover art
Treasure Island cover art
Heidi cover art
National Velvet cover art
The Midnight Pony and Other Stories cover art
My Account cover art

Critic reviews

“One of the best animal stories every written, Black Beauty charts the decline and fall of a wellbred horse brought low by neglectful grooms and overwork in the cab trade…Black Beauty himself is finally saved…less fortunate is his highspirited friend in harness Ginger, whose ignoble death in the streets of London makes for one of the most powerful passages in all children’s literature.” ( The Cambridge Guide to Literature in English)

What listeners say about Black Beauty

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    3
  • 4 Stars
    0
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0
Performance
  • 5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    3
  • 4 Stars
    0
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0
Story
  • 5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    3
  • 4 Stars
    0
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.