Black Beauty Illustrated

A wild mustang narrates her life from birth born free within the Onaqui Mountains of Utah. She explains that her mother Duchess taught her about everything, even what happens to horses when they expire; they fly into the sky and rest among the stars. One day, the mustang accidentally alerts some cowboys who proceed to wrangle her entire herd, resulting in the mustang never seeing her mother again. A horse trainer named John Manly arrives and purchases the mustang and takes her to Birtwick, a horse sanctuary. While she likes John due to his toughened and experienced spirit, the mustang continues to toy with him and refuses to cooperate with him, who nevertheless remains patient. The mustang ends up befriending two other horses named Ginger and Merrylegs. John is informed that his sister and her husband have died in a car accident; leaving him to take in his niece, Jo Green. Jo wants nothing to do with John, especially since he rarely visited them, but becomes entranced with the mustang who continues to act difficult. However, the mustang recognizes Jo's pain as similar to her own and ends up connecting with her. Jo learns to tame the mustang and names her Black Beauty, or Beauty for short. John manages to get through to Jo by having her work in the stables and tend to Beauty on a regular basis. They popularize the phrase "partnering" a horse as opposed to "breaking" a horse. John informs Jo that they will eventually have to sell Beauty, but Jo refuses. One night, a fire breaks out due to a distracted stable handler leaving a heater on and the horses have to be evacuated. With Birtwick losing money, Jo is concerned over Beauty having to be sold, but works out a deal with John's boss, Henry Gordon, so that she can work extra to earn the money to buy Beauty, though he states that they might lease her. The upper class Winthorp family arrive to purchase horses for their estate with the daughter Georgina immediately choosing Beauty to be leased. John manages to convince them to have Jo come along as her tenant. At the Earlshall estate, Beauty learns that her friend Ginger was purchased for the Winthorp's son George, who unlike Georgina, is kind and takes an interest in Jo.