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The story is narrated in the first person as an autobiographical memoir told by the titular horse named Black Beauty—beginning with his carefree days as a colt on an English farm with his mother, to his difficult life pulling cabs in London, to his happy retirement in the country. Along the way, he meets with many hardships and recounts many tales of cruelty and kindness. Each short chapter recounts an incident in Black Beauty's life containing a lesson or moral typically related to the kindness, sympathy, and understanding treatment of horses, with Sewell's detailed observations and extensive descriptions of horse behaviour lending the novel a good deal of verisimilitude.

The book describes conditions among London horse-drawn taxicab drivers, including the financial hardship caused to them by high licence fees and low, legally fixed fares. A page footnote in some editions says that soon after the book was published, the difference between 6-day taxicab licences (not allowed to trade on Sundays) and 7-day taxicab licences (allowed to trade on Sundays) was abolished and the taxicab licence fee was much reduced.

Anna Sewell (30 March 1820 – 25 April 1878) was an English novelist, best known as the author of the classic novel Black Beauty.

Anna Mary Sewell was born in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, England into a devoutly Quaker family. Her father was Isaac Phillip Sewell (1793–1879), and her mother, Mary Wright Sewell (1798–1884) was a successful author of children's books. She had one sibling, a younger brother named Philip and was largely educated at home.

At the age of twelve, the family moved to Stoke Newington, where Sewell attended school for the first time. Two years later, however, she slipped while walking home from school and severely injured both of her ankles. Her father took a job in Brighton in 1836, in the hope that the climate there would help to cure her. Despite this, and most likely because of mistreatment of her injury, for the rest of her life Anna was unable to stand without a crutch or to walk for any length of time. For greater mobility, she frequently used horse-drawn carriages, which contributed to her love of horses and concern for the humane treatment of animals.

At about this time, both Anna and her mother left the Society of Friends to join the Church of England, though both remained active in evangelical circles. Her mother expressed her religious faith most noticeably by authoring a series of evangelical children's books, which Anna helped to edit, though all the Sewells, and Mary Sewell's family, the Wrights, engaged in many other good works.

While seeking to improve her health in Europe, Sewell encountered various writers, artists, and philosophers, to which her previous background had not exposed her.

Sewell's only published work was Black Beauty, written during 1871 to 1877, after she had moved to Old Catton, a village outside the city of Norwich in Norfolk. During this time her health was declining. She was often so weak that she was confined to her bed and writing was a challenge. She dictated the text to her mother and from 1876 began to write on slips of paper which her mother then transcribed.

Sewell sold the novel to local publisher Jarrolds on 24 November 1877, when she was 57 years of age. Although it is now considered a children's classic, she originally wrote it for those who worked with horses. She said "a special aim [was] to induce kindness, sympathy, and an understanding treatment of horses".

Sewell died of hepatitis or phthisis on 25 April 1878, five months after her book was published, living long enough to see the book's initial success. She was buried on 30 April 1878 in the Quaker burial-ground at Lammas near Buxton, Norfolk, not far from Norwich, where a wall plaque now marks her resting place.

Chapter 1. My Early Home
Chapter 2. The Hunt
Chapter 3. My Breaking In
Chapter 4. Birtwick Park
Chapter 5. A Fair Start
Chapter 6. Liberty
Chapter 7. Ginger
Chapter 8. Ginger's Story Continued
Chapter 9. Merrylegs
Chapter 10. A Talk in the Orchard
Chapter 11. Plain Speaking
Chapter 12. A Stormy Day
Chapter 13. The Devil's Trade Mark
Chapter 14. James Howard
Chapter 15. The Old Ostler
Chapter 16. The Fire
Chapter 17. John Manly's Talk
Chapter 18. Going for the Doctor
Chapter 19. Only Ignorance
Chapter 20. Joe Green
Chapter 21. The Parting
Chapter 22. Earlshall
Chapter 23. A Strike for Liberty
Chapter 24. The Lady Anne
Chapter 25. Reuben Smith
Chapter 26. How It Ended
Chapter 27. Ruined, and Going Down-Hill
Chapter 28. A Job-Horse and His Drivers
Chapter 29. Cockneys
Chapter 30. A Thief
Chapter 31. A Humbug
Chapter 32. A Horse Fair
Chapter 33. A London Cab Horse
Chapter 34. An Old War Horse
Chapter 35. Jerry Barker
Chapter 36. The Sunday Cab
Chapter 37. The Golden Rule
Chapter 38. Dolly and a Real Gentleman
Chapter 39. Seedy Sam
Chapter 40. Poor Ginger
Chapter 41. The Butcher
Chapter 42. The Election
Chapter 43. A Friend in Need
Chapter 44. Old Captain and His Successor
Chapter 45. Jerry's New Year
Chapter 46. Jakes and the Lady
Chapter 47. Hard Times
Chapter 48. Farmer Thoroughgood and His Grandson Willie
Chapter 49. My Last Home
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