Carter is currently employed as a freelance writer. In this essay, Carter considers the social and historical relevance of Sewell's document as a treatise on animal rights.

Anna Sewell's Black Beauty served in her time not only as a treatise on animal rights, it is an account closely relevant to the author's personal life, as well as her advocacy for horses in a time where females were not a presence in the equine community, their voices more often than not discounted in a male-dominated society. Examples are sprinkled throughout the novel, in the words and actions of the characters, both animal and female, which demonstrate their ability to provoke responses that expose the very underpinnings of a male-dominated Victorian society.

Strikingly different for a Victorian woman, Sewell knew a great deal about an industry long dominated by men. The novel's cast of characters, from stable boys to...