Black Beauty is handsome and spirited, with a sweet temper. When he is four years old he is sold to a new owner who gently breaks him in. He is no longer free to gallop around the fields yet there is happiness and adventure among the hardship as his situation changes from being a carriage horse on a country estate to a cab horse in town. At the same time he is aware that his well-being and future fate depend very much on the kindness or cruelty of his various masters. The author's only book, Black Beauty was a huge success when it was first published in 1877. Its exposure of the ill-treatment of horses at the hands of their owners'led to a change in people's attitudes towards horses and domestic animals in general.