His first and most famous work was The Black Stallion (1941),[2] the success of which led to many sequels over decades; the series has been continued since his death by his son Steven.

Farley began to write The Black Stallion while he was a student at Brooklyn's Erasmus Hall High School and Mercersburg Academy in Pennsylvania.

The neighborhood is near the site of the 1939 World's Fair and the Belmont Park racetrack, an important venue for horse racing.

This area up to the end of World War II still supported agriculture, including cows, horses and truck farming.

[3] Farley and his wife, Rosemary, had four children—Pam, Alice, Steven and Tim—whom they raised on a farm in Pennsylvania and in a beach house in Florida.