Black Beauty - Softcover

Kristen Guest is Associate Professor of English at the University of Northern British Columbia.

“No animal narrative captures the complexity of Victorian relations with animals better than Black Beauty. This edition offers an invaluable introduction to the novel and the burgeoning field of Victorian animal studies. In addition, Guest’s excerpts of primary documents plunge readers into the physical, material, and affective conditions not only of domestic animals, but also of the authors and advocates who longed to understand and protect them.” ― Teresa Mangum, University of Iowa

“Students, as well as the growing number of literary scholars working in animal studies, will benefit immensely from this edition. Guest places the novel in the context of disparate, but overlapping, discourses in Victorian England: animal rights and anti-vivisection, scientific analyses of animal emotion, industrial discourse that linked horses with machines, and the sentimental novel. By locating the novel within a complicated cultural milieu, Guest defends the work from those who might dismiss it as a didactic tale for children. Her final note tying the cruelty suffered by animals in this text with the ongoing mistreatment of animals in our culture demonstrates just how relevant Sewell’s text remains today.” ― Monica Flegel, Lakehead University