Other editions of book The Story of Doctor Dolittle

The Story of Doctor Dolittle written and illustrated by the British author Hugh Lofting, is the first of his Doctor Dolittle books, a series of children's novels about a man who learns to talk to animals and becomes their champion around the world.Excerpt:THE FIRST CHAPTERPUDDLEBYNCE upon a time, many years ago—when our grandfathers were little children—there was a doctor; and his name was Dolittle—John Dolittle, M.D. “M.D.” means that he was a proper doctor and knew a whole lot.He lived in a little town called, Puddleby-on-the-Marsh. All the folks, young and old, knew him well by sight. And whenever he walked down the street in his high hat everyone would say, “There goes the Doctor!—He’s a clever man.” And the dogs and the children would all run up and follow behind him; and even the crows that lived in the church-tower would caw and nod their heads.The house he lived in, on the edge of the town, was quite small; but his garden was very large and had a wide lawn and stone seats and weeping-willows hanging over. His sister, Sarah Dolittle, was housekeeper for him; but the Doctor looked after the garden himself.He was very fond of animals and kept many kinds of pets. Besides the gold-fish in the pond at the bottom of his garden, he had rabbits in the pantry, white mice in his piano, a squirrel in the linen closet and a hedgehog in the cellar. He had a cow with a calf too, and an old lame horse—twenty-five years of age—and chickens, and pigeons, and two lambs, and many other animals. But his favorite pets were Dab-Dab the duck, Jip the dog, Gub-Gub the baby pig, Polynesia the parrot, and the owl Too-Too.His sister used to grumble about all these animals and said they made the house untidy. And one day when an old lady with rheumatism came to see the Doctor, she sat on the hedgehog who was sleeping on the sofa and never came to see him any more, but drove every Saturday all the way to Oxenthorpe, another town ten miles off, to see a different doctor.Then his sister, Sarah Dolittle, came to him and said,“John, how can you expect sick people to come and see you when you keep all these animals in the house? It’s a fine doctor would have his parlor full of hedgehogs and mice! That’s the fourth personage these animals have driven away. Squire Jenkins and the Parson say they wouldn’t come near your house again—no matter how sick they are. We are getting poorer every day. If you go on like this, none of the best people will have you for a doctor.”“But I like the animals better than the ‘best people’,” said the Doctor.“You are ridiculous,” said his sister, and walked out of the room.So, as time went on, the Doctor got more and more animals; and the people who came to see him got less and less. Till at last he had no one left—except the Cat’s-meat-Man, who didn’t mind any kind of animals. But the Cat’s-meat-Man wasn’t very rich and he only got sick once a year—at Christmas-time, when he used to give the Doctor sixpence for a bottle of medicine.Sixpence a year wasn’t enough to live on—even in those days, long ago; and if the Doctor hadn’t had some money saved up in his money-box, no one knows what would have happened.And he kept on getting still more pets; and of course it cost a lot to feed them. And the money he had saved up grew littler and littler.Then he sold his piano, and let the mice live in a bureau-drawer. But the money he got for that too began to go, so he sold the brown suit he wore on Sundays and went on becoming poorer and poorer.And now, when he walked down the street in his high hat, people would say to one another, “There goes John Dolittle, M.D.! There was a time when he was the best known doctor in the West Country—Look at him now—He hasn’t any money and his stockings are full of holes!”But the dogs and the cats and the children still ran up and followed him through the town—the same as they had done when he was rich.

Special cover replicates the first edition cover.SeaWolf Press is proud to offer another book in its Doctor Dolittle 100th Anniversary Collection. Each book in the collection contains the text, illustrations, and cover from the first or early edition (but it is not a photocopy.) Use Amazon's Lookinside feature to compare this edition with others. You'll be impressed by the differences. Our version has:All 55 original illustrations. This includes 35 large illustrations and 20 small graphic letters.Text that has been proofread to avoid errors common in other versions.A nice cover that replicates the first edition cover.The complete text in an easy-to-read font similar to the original.Properly formatted text complete with correct indenting, spacing, footnotes, italics, and tables.The Story of Doctor Dolittle, Being the History of His Peculiar Life at Home and Astonishing Adventures in Foreign Parts , was written and illustrated by the British author Hugh Lofting. It was first published in 1920. It is the first of his Doctor Dolittle book series about a man who learns to talk to animals and becomes their champion around the world. The main character and his adventures were adapted into several Doctor Dolittle films including the 2020 movie Dolittle.

John Dolittle, MD. is a respected physician and quiet bachelor living with his sister in the small English village of Puddleby-on-the-Marsh. His love of animals grows over the years and his household menagerie eventually scares off his human customers, leading to loss of wealth. But after learning the secrets of speaking to all animals from his parrot Polynesia, he takes up veterinary practice...

Dolittle is soon to be a major motion picture from Universal Pictures, starring Robert Downey Jr. and featuring the voice talents of Emma Thompson, Tom Holland, Selena Gomez, and John Cena! Meet the character who inspired the classic books in Dr. Dolitte’s first grand adventure! Doctor Dolittle is one of kind. Not only can he talk to animal, but he can understand them too! One day Doctor Dolittle receives a message from Africa: the monkeys there need his help. So he sails off from his home, bringing along all his pals: Dab-Dab, the duck; Jip, the dog; Gub-Gub, the baby pig; Polynesia, the parrot; and Too-Too, the owl. Join the doctor and his animal friends on an amazing adventures. They even meet the rarest of all animals, the two-headed pushmi-pullyu!

Doctor John Dolittle is the central character of a series of children's books by Hugh Lofting starting with the 1920 The Story of Doctor Dolittle. He is a doctor who shuns human patients in favour of animals, with whom he can speak in their own languages. He later becomes a naturalist, using his abilities to speak with animals to better understand nature and the history of the world. Doctor Dolittle first appeared in the author's illustrated letters to children, written from the trenches during World War I when actual news, he later said, was either too horrible or too dull. The stories are set in early Victorian England, where Doctor John Dolittle lives in the fictional English village of Puddleby-on-the-Marsh in the West Country. The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle Doctor Dolittle has a few close human friends, including Tommy Stubbins and Matthew Mugg, the Cats'-Meat Man. The animal team includes Polynesia (a parrot), Gub-Gub (a pig), Jip (a dog), Dab-Dab (a duck), Chee-Chee (a monkey), Too-Too (an owl), the Pushmi-pullyu, and a White Mouse later named simply "Whitey". THERE are some of us now reaching middle age who discover themselves to be lamenting the past in one respect if in none other, that there are no books written now for children comparable with those of thirty years ago. I say written for children because the new psychological business of writing about them as though they were small pills or hatched in some especially scientific method is extremely popular today. Writing for children rather than about them is very difficult as everybody who has tried it knows. It can only be done, I am convinced, by somebody having a great deal of the child in his own outlook and sensibilities. Such was the author of "The Little Duke" and "The Dove in the Eagle's Nest," such the author of "A Flatiron for a Farthing," and "The Story of a Short Life." Such, above all, the author of "Alice in Wonderland." Grownups imagine that they can do the trick by adopting baby language and talking down to their very critical audience. There never was a greater mistake. The imagination of the author must be a child's imagination and yet maturely consistent, so that the White Queen in "Alice," for instance, is seen just as a child would see her, but she continues always herself through all her distressing adventures. The supreme touch of the white rabbit pulling on his white gloves as he hastens is again absolutely the child's vision, but the white rabbit as guide and introducer of Alice's adventures belongs to mature grown insight. Geniuses are rare and, without being at all an undue praiser of times past, one can say without hesitation that until the appearance of Hugh Lofting, the successor of Miss Yonge, Mrs. Ewing, Mrs. Gatty and Lewis Carroll had not appeared. I remember the delight with which some six months ago I picked up the first "Dolittle" book in the Hampshire bookshop at Smith College in Northampton. One of Mr. Lofting's pictures was quite enough for me. The picture that I lighted upon when I first opened the book was the one of the monkeys making a chain with their arms across the gulf. Then I looked further and discovered Bumpo reading fairy stories to himself. And then looked again and there was a picture of John Dolittle's house. But pictures are not enough although most authors draw so badly that if one of them happens to have the genius for line that Mr. Lofting shows there must be, one feels, something in his writing as well. There is. You cannot read the first paragraph of the book, which begins in the right way "Once upon a time" without knowing that Mr. Lofting believes in his story quite as much as he expects you to. That is the first essential for a story teller. Then you discover as you read on that he has the right eye for the right detail. What child-inquiring mind could resist this intriguing sentence to be found on the second page of the book:

"The Story of Doctor Dolittle" is Hugh Lofting's classic children's novel about an animal-loving British country doctor who learns he can talk to animals. Doctor Dolittle puts his unique skill to use by traveling to Africa with his pets to help cure some sick monkeys. "The Story of Doctor Dolittle" which began as a series of letters from Hugh Lofting to his children during WWI is the first in a series of some of the most loved children's books of all time.

Doctor Dolittle has been beloved by children for more a century and will soon come to life again in the new movie, The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle.The famous doctor who can speak to animals first appeared in Hugh Lofting’s letters to his children during World War I and then later commercially in The Story of Doctor Dolittle, the first book in Lofting’s popular children’s book series.Written and illustrated by Lofting himself, The Story of Doctor Dolittle follows John Dolittle and his misadventures with a crew of animals that he befriends. After learning he can speak to animals and he transitions from human medicine to veterinary practice, he loses most of his income and human patients. However, word in the animal kingdom spreads of this doctor with an extraordinary gift. Animals travel from far and wide to visit the doctor’s practice and receive treatment for their ailments.After losing the majority of his wealth, the doctor receives word that an epidemic among monkeys is spreading throughout Africa and makes the voyage to confront the plague-ridden continent. Upon being shipwrecked with his animal crew, a slew of tribulations and adventures ensue in a classic story that has captivated readers young and old for nearly a century.

Doctor John Dolittle loves animals. He loves them so much that his home and office overflow with animals of every description. When Polynesia the parrot teaches him the language of the animals, Doctor Dolittle becomes a world-famous doctor, traveling even as far away as Africa to help his friends. This edition of the beloved children's classic contains black-and-white illustrations by Michael Hague and has been edited by award-winning authors Patricia and Fredrick McKissack for modern audiences.

Here is the first adventure of everyone’s favorite doctor, Doctor Doolittle. He lives a boring life in the sleepy little town, Puddleby-on-the-Marsh. But that all changes when an crocodile moves in and his parrot, Polynesia, takes it upon herself to teach the Good Doctor how to speak to animals. His fame as the very best veterinarian alive quickly spreads through animal kingdom. In short order the Doctor finds himself on a ship sailing to Africa to cure a monkey epidemic. Adventure awaits.

Foreword by Patricia C. McKissack and Fredrick L. McKissack. Afterword by Peter Glassman.When a swallow arrives in Puddleby-on-the-Marsh with the news that the monkeys of Africa are ill and only the doctor who talks with animals can save them, Doctor Dolittle and such good friends as Jip, his loyal dog, and Dab-Dab, his housekeeper duck, face their greatest challenge. Together they must sail to Africa, battle a band of cutthroat pirates, flee across a gorge on a bridge made of acrobatic apes, and convince the king of the beasts that even he must help an animal in need. With nearly fifty full-page pictures from Michael Hague and the McKissacks artful reworking of the dilemma faced by Prince Bumpo, this treasured story is now available in a deluxe edition that all families will want to explore again and again.

Foreword by Patricia C. McKissack and Fredrick L. McKissack. Afterword by Peter Glassman.When a swallow arrives in Puddleby-on-the-Marsh with the news that the monkeys of Africa are ill and only the doctor who talks with animals can save them, Doctor Dolittle and such good friends as Jip, his loyal dog, and Dab-Dab, his housekeeper duck, face their greatest challenge. Together they must sail to Africa, battle a band of cutthroat pirates, flee across a gorge on a bridge made of acrobatic apes, and convince the king of the beasts that even he must help an animal in need. With nearly fifty full-page pictures from Michael Hague and the McKissacks artful reworking of the dilemma faced by Prince Bumpo, this treasured story is now available in a deluxe edition that all families will want to explore again and again.

The classic children’s tale of a man who could walk with the animals, talk with the animals, grunt and squeak and squawk with the animals . . . John Dolittle was not your average doctor. He was known as a quiet, capable physician who lived a simple life in a simple house with his sister. His true love was for animals. He even kept a menagerie of wildlife in his very home, which ended up scaring away his two-legged human clientele. But after his parrot, Polynesia, teaches him the secret to speaking with animals, Dolittle finds a new calling as a veterinarian. He uses his gift to understand, help, and heal the furred and feathered of the world. As his fame spreads, he’s soon called upon to travel far from his small English village to the jungles of Africa, where an epidemic is threatening the entire monkey kingdom. It seems only Doctor Dolittle can save the day.