Black Beauty - Influence Upon Other Works

Influence Upon Other Works

• Beautiful Joe was a best-selling 1893 novel about a dog that was directly influenced by Black Beauty and followed a similar path to fame through awareness of cruelty to animals.
• The Strike at Shane's: A Prize Story of Indiana is an anonymous American novel that won a monetary award and national publication in 1893 in a contest sponsored by the American Humane Society, and was reprinted several times commercially thereafter. Described in the introduction as a "Sequel to "Black Beauty," it tells the story of good and bad treatment of farm animals and local wildlife, especially songbirds, in the America Midwest. The novel is generally attributed as the first published work of the novelist Gene Stratton Porter, and bears a remarkable textual similarity to her other books.
• One of the most popular of the interwar pony stories for children, Moorland Mousie (1929), by 'Golden Gorse' (Muriel Wace), is heavily influenced by Black Beauty.
• Phyllis Briggs wrote a sequel called Son of Black Beauty, published in 1950.
• The Pullein-Thompson sisters wrote several stories concerning relatives of Black Beauty. They are Black Ebony (1975; by Josephine), Black Velvet (1975; by Christine), Black Princess (1975; by Diana), Black Nightshade (1978; by Josephine), Black Romany (1978; by Diana), Blossom (1978; by Christine), Black Piper (1982; by Diana), Black Raven (1982; by Josephine) and Black Pioneer (1982; by Christine). The book Black Swift (1991) by Josephine is not about a Black Beauty relative. These were published in several compilations as well as some of them being available separately. Each compilation was subsequently republished, sometimes with a change of name.
• Spike Milligan wrote a parody of the novel called Black Beauty According to Spike Milligan (1996).