Black Beauty by Anna Sewell is a novel that discusses animal abuse. Black Beauty is a well-bred horse whose life takes him from owner to owner. Some of his owners are kind, and some are cruel. Throughout the novel, Black Beauty learns a lot about humans and the ways in which they interact with their world.

The first lesson Black Beauty learns is from his mother. He is playing with some of the other colts in the pasture. He and his friends are bucking and rearing and generally roughhousing. Black Beauty's mother calls him over and reminds him that while his playmates are cart horses, he comes from a proud lineage, and he needs to act in a manner that reflects it.

Black Beauty lives a happy, carefree life with his mother in the lush green meadow. When she goes out to work for the day, her son is free to have fun, to run around and gallop with the six young colts in the meadow beside him. But Black Beauty's mother is not very pleased. She takes the young foal aside one day and tells him that he must not act like the young colts, forever kicking and biting, even if it's just play. The colts are good horses, but they're cart-horse colts and so haven't learned good manners. Black Beauty, on the other hand, comes from a good bloodline; his grandfather twice won the cup at the Newmarket race-course. That's why his mother wants him to grow up to be a good and gentle horse, to lift his feet up well whenever he trots, and to never kick or bite, even in play.

What did the first readers learn from reading Black Beauty?

First readers of Anna Sewell's Black Beauty probably attained new perceptions of horses and, at least, some compassion for animals as well as learning of the dangers of intemperance.

Ms. Sewell wrote her one novel with the main purpose of informing readers of the mistreatment of horses specifically, and other animals in general. In the nineteenth century when this novel was written, horses were treated like machines to be used to do work that men were unable to do, and to transport people. For the upper class, having fashionable horses was de rigeur, so matched pairs were purchased and horses who had high stepping trots were popular. A very cruel device, the bearing rein, was used to force horses to keep their heads up at all times as it held the horse's head and neck in a sort of elevated hyperflexion. This bearing rein, then, could cause dangerous strain on a horse's back if it needed to go up hill as it pulled a carriage because of the unnatural position in which it was placed. For, a horse must be able to move its head and neck in order to pull heavy weights or absorb the strain of going uphill.

In addition to pointing out the cruelty of the bearing rein, Anna Sewell writes of many other cases of mistreatment such as in an episode Chapter 29 in which she tells of townspeople who rarely use a horse and buggy:

They always seemed to think that a horse was something like a steam engine, only smaller....they think that if only they pay for it, a horse is bound to go just as far and just as fast and with just as heavy a load as they please.

One driver is described as racing along and until it side-swipes a carriage. This collision causes the poor horse to have his flesh torn open with the blood streaming down. 

In addition to the promotion of animal rights, Anna Sewell, who was raised  as a Quaker in the Victorian Age, describes some of the dangers and repercussions of drunkenness. For instance, the groom who is responsible for Beauty’s knees being damaged is inebriated when he causes the accident. Frequently also, those who are described mistreating horses are in a state of drunkenness.

Certainly, animal rights and moral, upright behavior are help up to the readers as standards in Anna Sewell's didactic novel, Black Beauty.