Black Beauty (version 3 Dramatic Reading)
by Anna Sewell
Chapter 1 of 50 Dramatis Personae
- Running time
- 5 h 26 min
- Language
- English
- Readers
- Adele de Pignerolles, Arielle Lipshaw, Beth Thomas (1974-2020), Elizabeth Travers, Esther ben Simonides and 17 others
Chapters
About this recording
Black Beauty is a fictional autobiographical memoir told by a horse, who recounts many tales, both of cruelty and kindness. The title page of the first edition states that it was "Translated from the Original Equine by Anna Sewell." After its publication in 1877, Sewell lived just long enough to see her first and only novel become an immediate bestseller, as well as it encouraging the better treatment of many cruelly-treated animals.
Although initially intended for people who work with horses, it soon became a children's classic. While outwardly teaching animal welfare, it also contains allegorical lessons about how to treat people with kindness, sympathy and respect. The story is narrated in the first person and each short chapter relates an incident in Black Beauty's life, with Sewell's detailed observations and extensive descriptions of horse behaviour lending the novel a good deal of verisimilitude. (Summary by Cori Samuel, Wikipedia, and Mary Kay)
Black Beauty: Arielle Lipshaw
Ginger: Beth Thomas
Squire Gordon: Larry Wilson
John Manly: Oxenhandler
James Howard: Nolan Fout
Jeremiah Barker: Todd
Polly Barker: Kristin Gjerløw
Other roles read by: Nick Bulka, Zames Curran, Nolan…
