Black Beauty First edition sells for £33,000

A signed first edition of one of the most famous animal stories ever written has sold at auction for £33,600. The copy of Black Beauty, written in Norfolk by Anna Sewell, had been expected to sell for up to £8,000 at Christie's in London.

It was the only book ever written by Sewell, who was born in 1820 in Great Yarmouth and died in 1878.

The book, which belonged to her mother, is inscribed with the words: "Mary Sewell, from her loving child A.S.".