Anna Sewell old Lammas Quaker meeting house. Anna Sewell Anna Sewell (; 30 March 1820 – 25 April 1878) was an English novelist. She is well known as the author of the 1877 novel "Black Beauty," one of the top ten best selling novels for children ever created. Sewell was born on 30 March 1820 in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, into a devoutly Quaker family. Her father was Isaac Phillip Sewell (1793–1879), and her mother, Mary Wright Sewell (1798–1884), was a successful author of children's books. She had one sibling, a younger brother named Philip. The children were largely educated at home by
Classic book as the classic of all literature and the alternate meaning of classic as "a standard author". Literary figures from different eras have also weighed in (sometimes humorously) on the matter. Alan Bennett, the modern English playwright and author, said that "Definition of a classic: a book everyone is assumed to have read and often thinks they have read themselves." Mark Van Doren, the Columbia University professor and poet, is quoted by Jim Trelease (in his library-monograph "Classic Picture Books All Children Should Experience"), as saying that "A classic is any book that stays in print". And in his "Disappearance of