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    The Story of Doctor Dolittle
    The Story of Doctor Dolittle
    The Story of Doctor Dolittle
    Ebook102 pages1 hour

    The Story of Doctor Dolittle

    By Hugh Lofting and Mint Editions

    3.5/5

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    About this ebook

    The Story of Doctor Dolittle (1920) is a children’s fantasy novel by Hugh Lofting. The novel is the first in a series of fifteen books featuring Doctor Dolittle, a character created by Lofting in letters written to his wife and children at home while he served in the Great War. Beloved by generations of adults and children for their imaginative and moral worldview, Lofting’s books have inspired numerous adaptations for theater, film, and television.

    Doctor John Dolittle is an ordinary physician with an extraordinary gift. Struggling to maintain his clinic, which he runs at the house of his older sister, Dolittle turns his attention to caring for his vast collection of animals from around the world. When his parrot Polynesia teaches him how to speak with animals, however, his dwindling fortunes are reversed, and Dolittle establishes a successful veterinary clinic. As word of his skill reaches others, he is recruited for a voyage to Africa, where help is needed in order to cure an epidemic ravaging the monkey population. When a shipwreck leaves him stranded in a hostile kingdom, however, Doctor Dolittle needs the help of the very monkeys he has come to save in order to escape the clutches of Jolliginki’s king. Featuring pirates, crocodiles, and a magical creature known as a pushmi-pullyu, The Story of Doctor Dolittle is a delightful work of fantasy for children and adults alike.

    This edition of Hugh Lofting’s The Story of Doctor Dolittle is a classic of English children’s fiction reimagined for modern readers.

    Since our inception in 2020, Mint Editions has kept sustainability and innovation at the forefront of our mission. Each and every Mint Edition title gets a fresh, professionally typeset manuscript and a dazzling new cover, all while maintaining the integrity of the original book.

    With thousands of titles in our collection, we aim to spotlight diverse public domain works to help them find modern audiences. Mint Editions celebrates a breadth of literary works, curated from both canonical and overlooked classics from writers around the globe.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMint Editions
    Release dateMar 2, 2021
    ISBN9781513274577
    Author

    Hugh Lofting

    Hugh Lofting was born in Maidenhead in 1886. He studied engineering in London and America and his work as a civil engineer took him all over the world. He interrupted his career to enlist in the army and fight in the First World War. Wanting to shield his children from the horrors of combat, including the fate of horses on the battlefield, he wrote to them instead about a kindly doctor who could talk to animals. After the war he settled with his family in Connecticut and it was from there that he published his Doctor Dolittle books. The Story of Doctor Dolittle was published in 1920, followed by twelve more in the series. The highly acclaimed author died in 1947.

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    Reviews for The Story of Doctor Dolittle

    3.5/5

    504 ratings5 reviews

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    • 3/5
      A classic children's adventure story; Dr Doolittle and his friends travel to Africa to help the monkeys. Beware though, this writing is very much of its age and the vocabulary used (and some of the opinions expressed) should be taken with a generous pinch of salt.
    • 4/5
      Yes there is some racial language found in this delightful story of a doctor who can talk with animals. But keeping in mind this was written in 1920 it is the perfect book to educate our children on how far or how little we've come since then.
    • 3/5
      I didn't fall in love with this book. I like to introduce our kids to lasting literature, classics, if you will. I want them to be well-rounded. To complete having read this book we will also watch the original movie with Rex Harrison and then also the newer version with Eddie Murphy.
    • 1/5
      Racist and not that well-written, and there's very little depth to the characters. And after dealing with in-laws who have a blase attitude toward money (i.e. more will just magically appear when you need it), I found the Doctor's passiveness and impracticality very frustrating. This merits a star only because there are a few charming moments, such as the horse who gets green sunglasses to wear in the fields. (Read out loud at bedtime, under duress.)
    • 5/5
      I first read The Story of Doctor Dolittle when I was a young child. It is definitely an all-time-favourite of mine. The storytelling is superb, and there are lots of great characters. I really liked Polynesia, the parrot, and the extraordinary 'PUSHMI-PULLYU' - What fantastic imagination! - I'm still hoping to meet one!

      I'm going to read this story again soon! A complete review to follow.

      Recommended reading for young children and fun-loving adults too!

    Book preview

    The Story of Doctor Dolittle - Hugh Lofting

    I

    PUDDLEBY

    Once 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.

    II

    ANIMAL LANGUAGE

    It happened one day that the Doctor was sitting in his kitchen talking with the Cat’s-meat-Man who had come to see him with a stomach-ache.

    Why don’t you give up being a people’s doctor, and be an animal-doctor? asked the Cat’s-meat-Man.

    The parrot, Polynesia, was sitting in the window looking out at the rain and singing a sailor-song to herself. She stopped singing and started to listen.

    You see, Doctor, the Cat’s-meat-Man went on, "you know all about animals—much more than what these here vets do. That book you wrote—about cats, why, it’s wonderful! I can’t read or write myself—or maybe I’d write some books. But my wife, Theodosia, she’s a scholar, she is. And she read your book to me. Well, it’s wonderful—that’s all can be said—wonderful. You might have been a cat yourself. You know the way they think. And listen: you can make a lot of money doctoring animals. Do you know that? You see, I’d send all the old women who had sick cats or dogs to you. And if they didn’t get sick fast enough, I could put something in the meat I sell ’em to make ’em sick, see?"

    Oh, no, said the Doctor quickly. You mustn’t do that. That wouldn’t be right.

    Oh, I didn’t mean real sick, answered the Cat’s-meat-Man. Just a little something to make them droopy-like was what I had reference to. But as you say, maybe it ain’t quite fair on the animals. But they’ll get sick anyway, because the old women always give ’em too much to eat. And look, all the farmers round about who had lame horses and weak lambs—they’d come. Be an animal-doctor.

    When the Cat’s-meat-Man had gone the parrot flew off the window on to the Doctor’s table and said,

    "That man’s got sense. That’s what you ought to do. Be an animal-doctor. Give the silly people up—if they haven’t brains enough to see you’re the best doctor in the world. Take care of animals instead—they’ll soon find it out. Be an animal-doctor."

    Oh, there are plenty of animal-doctors, said John Dolittle, putting the flower-pots outside on the window-sill to get the rain.

    "Yes, there are plenty, said Polynesia. But none of them are any good at all. Now listen, Doctor, and I’ll tell you something. Did you know that animals can talk?"

    I knew that parrots can talk, said the Doctor.

    Oh, we parrots can talk in two languages—people’s language and bird-language, said Polynesia proudly. "If I say, ‘Polly wants a cracker,’ you understand me. But hear this: Ka-ka oi-ee, fee-fee? "

    Good Gracious! cried the Doctor. What does that mean?

    That means, ‘Is the porridge hot yet?’—in bird-language.

    My! You don’t say so! said the Doctor. You never talked that way to me before.

    What would have been the good? said Polynesia, dusting some cracker-crumbs off her left wing. You wouldn’t have understood me if I had.

    Tell me some more, said the Doctor, all excited; and he rushed over to the dresser-drawer and came back with the butcher’s book and a pencil. Now don’t go too fast—and I’ll write it down. This is interesting—very interesting—something quite new. Give me the Birds’ A.B.C. first—slowly now.

    So that was the way the Doctor came to know that animals had a language of their own and could talk to one another. And all that afternoon, while it was raining, Polynesia sat on the kitchen table giving him

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