Raymond Sheppard and Black Beauty (Part One)

 

Black Beauty by Raymond Sheppard

I have to confess to never having read the original book. The Cambridge Guide to Children's Books in English (Ed. Victor Watson, 2001) describes the book thus:

Black Beauty: the Autobiography of a Horse (1877) Novel by Anna Sewell (1820–78) cast in the form of fictional animal autobiography which first gained popularity in the eighteenth century. Black Beauty is one of the best-selling novels of all time. Originally written as a didactic story for adults, especially working men and boys responsible for horses and their welfare, it became popular with children almost immediately and has remained so ever since. The story recounts Black Beauty’s life as a working horse, from idyllic beginnings as a foal on a country estate, through gradual physical deterioration and worsening treatment under successive ownerships, to a consolatory happy ending. The story is episodic, told in simple prose and short chapters, each chapter embodying a moral and educational point. Written for adults with modest literacy and little leisure for reading, the book is linguistically undemanding but narratively powerful, its episodes unified by its sympathetic central figure, his moving life-story, and his naive but telling perspective on human behaviour. Anna Sewell was a Quaker, and the book articulates Quaker values not only concerning the human treatment of animals but in its loathing of warfare and its exposure of social ills such as drunkenness. It defends – and in itself impressively represents – the Quaker virtues of plain speaking and moral courage. 

 Raymond Sheppard illustrated it twice: once in book form and once in comic form - which will be my next article

Let's take the book first as I have little to say. I have been watching websites for a copy of the 1954 edition of Black Beauty by Blackie and Son for over 20 years. Due to the enormous amount of reprints - even by Blackie themselves-  I have never seen a copy come up for sale, let alone one with a dust-jacket for the 1954 edition...and I haven't even looked at American reprints from that year! Blackie previously issued one in their "Blackie's Library of Famous Books" which was printed on their covers and not on the book itself - see for example Dog Crusoe. 

Black Beauty by Raymond Sheppard

In 1954 four new reprints were published by Penguin, Blackie, Preview Publications and Ward Lock (illustrated by Lionel Edwards). The one we are concerned with was published in November 1954 at the price of 3/3d with 224 pages. So, as I say, I have no dust-jacket to show - or knowledge of whether Sheppard drew it. If anyone has one, please do share! The other later editions by Blackie were illustrated by Sheila Rose, and A. Malculric. Jane Badger has a nice overview of various editions too. I wish other sellers would add in illustrators names - even children's booksellers omit that information sometimes!

Above we see the first drawing of Beauty's free early life with his mother and then the stable fire. Here are the other two images accompanying the text - where Blantrye discovers.Lady Anne lying face down, and finally Beauty at work as a cab horse in London.

Black Beauty by Raymond Sheppard

Black Beauty by Raymond Sheppard

I was fortunate that a colleague, in the library world - Rachel Nelligan - provided a PDF of the images for the book for which I am very grateful. I thought it about time to write about Beauty and share these images

Just to round things off here are two studies by Sheppard 

Nomenclature of a horse

 

Skeleton of a horse

 NEXT: The comic version of Black Beauty