“You could not rest in your bed”
19th Century Blockbuster Animal Protection Novels
By Paul Shapiro
Humans are a story-telling animal, and it’s clear that stories tend to move us with far greater efficacy than facts, statistics, and rational arguments. It’s easy to think of stories that have altered history, whether The Jungle (1906) leading to federal food safety regulations, Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852) accelerating the abolitionist movement, or Oliver Twist (1837) generating outcry for the poor.
Perhaps nowhere was this fact more recognized than in the late 19th century animal protection movement, where dissemination of pro-animal novels was a core activist strategy. In Our Kindred Creatures, a 2024 book telling the tale of animal welfare campaigns from more than a century past, authors Bill Wasik and Monica Murphy detail how the crusaders for nonhumans used the power of fiction to create real-world changes for the animals they were seeking to protect.
Black Beauty (1877) is the by far most famous of the novels written in the late 19th century aiming to literally give animals a voice, and its wild financial literary success spawned similar books like Beautiful Joe (1893) and The Strike and Shane’s (1893). Each of these novels — all written by women — was a mega-bestseller in its era, with sales numbers that even 21st century authors would envy.
Black Beauty at one point outsold all books aside from the Bible, and today stands at more than 50 million copies sold. Beautiful Joe was the first Canadian book to sell more than a million copies and there’s even to this day a Beautiful Joe Park in Ontario, replete with a canine statue of Joe himself. The Strike at Shane’s was written by an author described today as the “JK Rowling of her era,” who sold between 5–10 million copies of her books.
These were hardly the first animal protection fiction — that title goes to books like The Golden Ass from 1,800+ years ago and The Case of Animals Versus Man, written 1,000+ years ago— but these three were perhaps the first ultra-successful novels aiming to improve the human-animal relationship.
I recently read all three of these novels back-to-back and was struck by how revolutionary they were.
Black Beauty: A Being with a Biography
The success of Uncle Tom’s Cabin led abolitionist Frederick Douglass to write that “nothing could have better suited the moral and humane requirements of the hour. Its effect was amazing, instantaneous, and universal.” Recognizing this impact, Anna Sewell determined to write the “Uncle Tom’s Cabin of the horse,” as told from the perspective of an actual horse named Black Beauty.
Although Black Beauty wasn’t the first autobiography of an animal, the idea that a horse would have a life story to tell in his own words, detailing both the horrors and kindness he received from various masters, was revolutionary for the time. Sewell may have set out to do for horses what Harriet Beecher Stowe had done for African-descended slaves, but Black Beauty’s first-year sales quickly surpassed those of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, reaching international acclaim. Not all societies practiced human slavery, but virtually all of human civilization at that point was powered by equines who were forced to work under the constant threat of whipping or worse.
According to Wasik and Murphy, 19th century animal movement leaders like Massachusetts SCPA founder George Thorndike Angell “dreamed of creating a new literature of animal appreciation, and he succeeded beyond all expectation, launching one of the nineteenth century’s best-selling novels and helping thereby to create a whole new genre of animal storytelling.”
The popularization of Black Beauty by animal advocates like Angell sparked public outrage and real-world reforms, most notably the abolition of the check-rein — a device that painfully forced horses to keep their heads raised — and a campaign against tail-docking. But the book also forced readers simply to imagine what life must be like for a horse, encouraging readers to have empathy and give them a voice when they witnessed equine abuse, which was routine and widespread.
Black Beauty opened people’s eyes to the possibility that an animal could have a point of view. Horses were transformed in the story from mere commodities to individuals with personalities, likes and dislikes, and most importantly, a desire to avoid the suffering that humans so frequently deliver upon them.
Sewell’s impact was so great that, according to a 2012 NPR story, 19th century “animal rights activists regularly passed copies of the book to horse drivers and stable hands.” Advocates even built a monument to Anna Sewell, appropriately a drinking fountain for horses in Connecticut. That monument still stands today with its biblical inscription, “Blessed are the merciful.”
Beautiful Joe: Bringing Dignity to Dogs
Nearly all resources of today’s animal welfare societies go toward dogs and cats, but in the 19th century, these animals were far from being the movement’s focal point.
Margaret Marshall Saunders sought to change that with an autobiography of a real dog named Beautiful Joe. So moved by the success of Black Beauty, Saunders explicitly cites Sewell’s work as her inspiration, and even includes a passage in which Joe is aware of how important the novel was for horses and how he hopes his story may do something similar for dogs.
Joe’s story involves harrowing torture during his first year of life — including the barbaric amputation of his ears and tail by his master — followed by a relatively easy life for the next decade with a kind family in which he learns of various other types of animal abuse.
Unlike Black Beauty, which is nearly entirely focused on the plight of working horses, Beautiful Joe is more expansive in its advocacy for all animals, enumerating lengthy descriptions of rampant cruelty to dairy cows, farmed animals during transport and slaughter, bears, foxes, moose, birds killed for fashionable hats, fish, and more.
One human character in the book, lamenting the omnipresent animal suffering in human society, warns that “if you could see all the wickedness, and cruelty, and vileness that is practiced in this little town of ours in one night, you could not rest in your bed.”
The Strike at Shane’s: When the Animals Finally Rise Up
Gene Stratton-Porter was among the most famous authors of her era, publishing upwards of ten million books before dying in a car accident in 1924. Her popular book, The Strike at Shane’s, is the least known today of these three books, and is the only one that isn’t an autobiography of one particular animal. Instead, the story focuses on the plight of an elderly horse named Dobbins who helps to organize the nonhuman victims living on Shane’s farm.
When the animals who inhabit Shane’s farm are finally fed up with the constant violence they endure, they band together and refuse to work until their conditions improve. After descriptions of routine brutality committed by Shane against them, the animals convene a meeting to “discuss the matter as to the best and most convenient remedy for the evils existing on the farm.”
In short order, horses refuse to labor, the cow refuses to provide milk, the wild birds — who are hunted by farmers for fun — refuse to eat agricultural pests, leading to crop destruction.
Stratton-Porter acknowledges in her introduction to the novel that the story requires some suspension of belief since real-world animals can’t organize an actual strike, conceding: “It is true the relation of employer and employee does not exist between man and his domestic animals, but rather that of master and slave.”
Theme of the Three: Humans Are Masters, but Must be Kind Masters for their Own Good
Over and over again, these three novels make the same point: Harming animals boomerangs to harm the humans. There’s no doubt that cruelty to animals is portrayed as a wrong unto itself, but all three authors repeatedly stress how bad animal abuse is for the humans abusing the animals.
For example, the toads on Shane’s farm protest that they’re killed by the farmer even though “we destroy many noxious insects that would injure the crops grown on the farm.”
A cow on Shane’s farm cries: “I give all the milk for the family, and don’t begrudge them any of it, yet when they took my calf from me I couldn’t help but worry about it, and once I jumped the fence to get to it. Then Tom came with a club and beat me.” She then decides to join the strike and stop producing milk. One horse on Shane’s farm even notes that “I’d be willing to do my share of the work if I was treated right.”
In Black Beauty, masters who refrain from overworking their horses are rewarded with horses who want to work to please their masters and who live longer.
Each book presents animals as naturally inclined towards goodness, but as individuals who can be ruined by cruel treatment that ends up working against the interests of their owners.
As is obvious from these comments, while groundbreaking for their time, none of these books would be considered animal rights doctrine today.
The closest to suggesting a world without animal exploitation any of the books get is a passage in Beautiful Joe referencing a man who’s been to the infamous Chicago stockyards:
“The Lord only knows the suffering of animals in transportation,” said the old gentleman. “My dear young lady, if you could see what I have seen, you’d never eat another bit of meat all the days of your life.” … “What kind of food does their flesh make? It’s rank poison. Three of my family have died of cancer. I am a vegetarian.”
Paying for Our Sins — on Earth and Beyond
As all three books were authored by Christians, the punishment for animal abuse in these stories isn’t simply less work or food from the animals under the abusers’ control. Rather, in all three novels it’s made clear that how we treat animals here on Earth has a direct impact on how we’ll be treated when we depart.
As noted by one of the kind women on Shane’s farm, “God gave us the birds and animals, and I think it is a sin for us to abuse them. He will certainly hold us to account for our treatment of his creatures.”
In Beautiful Joe, one human warns, “I firmly believe that the Lord will punish every man or woman who ill-treats a dumb [mute] creature just as surely as he will punish those who ill-treat their fellow-creatures. If a man’s life has been a long series of cruelty to dumb animals, do you suppose that he would enjoy himself in heaven?”
Similarly, in Black Beauty, readers are cautioned by a character that “we shall all have to be judged according to our works, whether they be toward man or toward beast.”
In the same vein, these Christian writers advocate not just for animals, but for temperance as well, with alcohol being a villain and cause of animal cruelty in all three books. Joe himself even tries to absolve human nature at one point in his autobiography, explaining: “I don’t think they meant to hurt me, or to kill [his friend]. It was the nasty stuff in the bottles that took away their reason.”
Toward a More Merciful Humanity
None of these books condemn humanity — they each showcase humans who are cruel, and others who are kind. They invite us to choose which type of human we want to be. For example, Black Beauty starts his life with a kind owner and is subjected to various degrees of cruelty and compassion by subsequent masters throughout his life. Beautiful Joe spends his first year as the victim of constant abuse, only to find a new loving home where he spends the next decade. The animals on Shane’s farm despise Shane himself, but love the women on the farm who speak kindly to them.
The books’ message is one that’s far from misanthropy, and instead forces readers to ask themselves what kind of human they want to be. They go far beyond simply asking readers to be the type of person who refrains from violence or neglect, and instead call upon readers to become a voice for the voiceless. For example, in Black Beauty, the heroes are those who turn in horse abusers to local magistrates for punishment, and those who actively intervene to stop horses from being beaten.
One hero in Sewell’s story sums up his worldview: “My doctrine is this, that if we see cruelty or wrong that we have the power to stop, and do nothing, we make ourselves sharers in the guilt.”
We later hear from a conscientious human in the story: “Do you know why this world is as bad as it is?” “No,” said the other. “Then I’ll tell you. It is because people think only about their own business, and won’t trouble themselves to stand up for the oppressed, nor bring the wrongdoer to light.”
Humane Sentiment vs. New Technology
The plight of animals exploited by humans has animated the minds of many novelists throughout history. As noted above, The Golden Ass — the oldest full novel ever discovered — is entirely about what life is like as a donkey, and it isn’t pleasant. More than half a millennium later, The Case of the Animals Versus Man tells the tale of oppressed animals who take humanity to court to right the wrongs committed against them. Yet another half a millenium later, in Gulliver’s Travels (1726), Jonathan Swift writes about the land of the Houyhnhnms, equines who lord over human-like creatures (called Yahoos), and who are shocked when they learn how horses are treated by human “Yahoos” in London.
But it wasn’t until the late 19th century that such books began enjoying widespread popularity and literary success for their authors, starting with the three novels that are the focus here. To our knowledge, no books sparked organized animal protection movements seeking social reform until Black Beauty and its descendents like Beautiful Joe and The Strike at Shane’s Farm.
Today, there are a number of new animal protection-themed novels, from Rage and Reason (2001) to The Plague Dogs (2010), yet none have managed to achieve a fraction of what these three 19th century novels did for animals.
At the same time, for all their literary and social success, none of the three bestsellers even attempted to seek freedom for the subjects of their tales. That task, at least as much as it has been achieved for horses, would be left largely to new technologies that rendered animal exploitation obsolete in the first place. While Sewell and Stratton-Porter don’t seem to have imagined a world less dependent on animal labor, Saunders did offer a semblance of hope in Beautiful Joe. As she has one character say:
“Poor brutes, there is a better time coming for them though. When electricity is more fully developed we’ll see some wonderful changes. As it is, last year in different places, about thirty thousand horses were released from those abominable horse cars, by having electricity introduced on the roads.”
As with so many campaigns against animal abuse in the 19th century, in the end, new technology seems to have done more to free animals than humane sentiment. Still, there’s no doubt that humane sentiment was passionately awakened by books like these three in a society that hadn’t seriously grappled with the moral implications of its disregard for nonhuman interests. In some ways animals are better off today than in the 19th century, while in others — especially the rise of industrialized farming of billions of creatures for food — one might ask whether the world could use another Black Beauty to awaken us yet again.
Paul Shapiro is the CEO of The Better Meat Co., the author of the national bestseller Clean Meat: How Growing Meat Without Animals Will Revolutionize Dinner and the World, a five-time TEDx speaker, and the host of the Business for Good Podcast. In 2023, he was named a Most Admired CEO by the Sacramento Business Journal.
