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
Rufus Sewell to the parents of Welsh poet and writer Dylan Thomas. Sewell has said that he was a difficult teenager. Sewell was educated at Orleans Park School, a state comprehensive school in Twickenham, which he left in 1984, followed by West Thames College, where a drama teacher sent him to audition for drama school. He later enrolled at the Central School of Speech and Drama in London. After graduating, Sewell was set up with an agent by Judi Dench, who had directed him in a play while at the Central School of Speech and Drama. His breakthrough year was in 1993,