Black Beauty from the station from which he commuted to work. Her dependence on horse-drawn transportation fostered her respect for horses. Sewell's introduction to writing began in her youth when she helped edit the works of her mother, Mary Wright Sewell (1797–1884), a deeply religious, popular author of juvenile best-sellers. Anna Sewell never married or had children. In visits to European spas, she met many writers, artists, and philanthropists. Her only book was "Black Beauty", written between 1871 and 1877 in her house at Old Catton. During this time, her health was declining, and she could barely get out of bed. Her
Classic book ""Your" classic author is the one you cannot feel indifferent to, who helps you define yourself in relation to him, even in dispute with him." Consideration of what makes a literary work a classic is for Calvino ultimately a personal choice, and, constructing a universal definition of what constitutes a Classic Book seems to him to be an impossibility, since, as Calvino says "There is nothing for it but for all of us to invent our own ideal libraries of classics." What actually makes a work of literature a "classic book" is not just a consideration of extensively published authors.