The Black Stallion

Walter Farley was only 26 years old when he published The Black Stallion, the fictional adventure story of the friendship between a boy and a majestic, powerful horse. Farley’s book, first available in 1941, was an instant bestseller. The Black Stallion and its 20 sequels have sold more than 12 million copies. The novel won the 1944 Young Reader’s Choice Award and inspired three Black Stallion movies and a TV series. At the heart of the book is the mutually protective relationship between New York school boy Alec Ramsay and a mysterious, untamed black stallion. They bond while saving each other during a shipwreck.

Traditionally, the novel has been regarded as a middle-grade novel. The author was raised around horses and kept them throughout his life. He began writing the book while still in high school and finished it while in college several years before it was published. Though Farley describes danger, physical injury, and the loss of human life, the narrative does not contain graphic material and is suitable for middle-grade readers.

Farley wrote more than 20 Black Stallion and directly derivative titles, greatly expanding the Black’s backstory as well as the stories of his offspring. Nearing the end of his life, Farley included his son, Stephen, as co-author of his last Black Stallion sequel.