- HarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics. "We call them dumb animals, and so they are, for they cannot tell us how they feel, but they do not suffer less because they have no words." When his beloved owners are forced to sell him, Black Beauty leaves his life as a young, care-free colt behind him and embarks on a working life of misery. Cruelly treated by his new masters, Anna Sewell rails against animal mistreatment in this poignant tale of a horse whose spirit can not be broken.