Lot 165: Lucy Kemp Welch (British, 1869-1958) 'Black Beauty': a design for the title page

'Black Beauty': a design for the title page
monogrammed, pencil, pen and ink,
28 x 20.5cm (11 x 8 1/16in).

Exhibited: David Messum Fine Art, Winter Exhibition 1996, no.82.

Anna Sewell was born in Church Plain, Great Yarmouth in 1820. Black Beauty, her only published work, was written between 1871 and 1877, at Spixworth Road, Old Catton near Norwich. She sold the novel to local publisher Jarrolds for £40, and its sales soon broke publishing records. Although it is now considered a children's classic, the story is narrated in the first person as an autobiographical memoir told by a horse named Black Beauty. Her original intended readers were those who worked with horses, and forthrightly taught animal welfare and compassion, as well as how to treat people with kindness, sympathy and respect. Sewell died of hepatitis in April 1878, five months after the book was published, but lived long enough to see its initial success. She was buried in the Quaker burial ground at Lammas near Buxton in Norfolk, where a wall plaque continues to mark her resting place.

Lucy Kemp-Welch is best known for her illustrations for the 1915 edition of Black Beauty, although this particular version of the title page was not used in the finished copy.