The intention of this Book Club is to explore creative writing with an East Anglian connection either through the author or by place and often by both. The club has a message board on the EDP website which can be most easily accessed by typing in http://new.edp24.co.uk/cs/forums/ into your internet browser. To reply to messages or post a new ‘thread’ you have to register. It takes a little getting used to but is easy once you’ve got the ‘knack’.
Last month I asked for suggestions for this month’s Book Club choice and two readers responded on the message board. I hope to eventually include all the books mentioned starting this month with a classic which was suggested by Kate Gardener. To give it its full title the book is Black Beauty, His Grooms and Companions – The Autobiography of a horse translated from the original equine by Anna Sewell and published by Jarrold in 1877. Anna’s story is well known but just in case you don’t know the book is a memoir told by a highbred horse, beginning with his days as a foal on a farm, moving on to his harder life pulling London cabs and then on to his rural retirement. He meets many hardships along the way and recounts them, in a way that provides moral lessons for the reader, and as such has become a children’s classic.
Apparently it wasn’t originally aimed at children though – instead, Sewell, wrote the book with people who work with horses in mind. Its lessons on improving animal welfare were certainly influential and the book is credited with having had a significant influence on how people treated animals in the late Victorian era.
I know that Kate who suggested the book has read it many times beginning with a copy she inherited in her childhood. The message board is ready and waiting for similar stories
Jeff
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