The Story of Doctor Dolittle

Story

Dr Dolittle is a shy and kindly man with many pets who lives in the village of Puddleby-on-the-Marsh. When he decides he would rather treat animals than people, Polynesia, his parrot, teaches him animal languages, from whisker twitching to ear wiggling. Soon he is treating many animal patients. Then Dolittle receives a distress message from monkeys in Africa, and sets off to their aid, getting shipwrecked and captured on the way…

Why we chose it

The Story of Doctor Dolittle is a much-loved children’s classic that began a series of popular adventures featuring Dolittle and his animal friends. Young readers often share Dolittle’s concern for and interest in animals.

Now a century old, the stories were later criticised for colonial attitudes and racist stereotypes, and have been re-edited. It is believed that Lofting, who thought that communication and respect could create a more harmonious world, would have liked these changes.

Where it came from

Hugh Lofting was born in the UK but spent most of his life in the USA. Although he wanted to be a writer he trained as an engineer and worked across the world.

During the First World War Lofting was distressed by the poor treatment of the working animals. Instead of describing the horror of the trenches in his letters home, he wrote and illustrated light-hearted animal tales for his children. In 1917 he returned home seriously wounded and his children persuaded him to make the stories into a book. This proved popular and his writing career began.

Where it went next

There are 15 books in the Doctor Doolittle series, and the stories have inspired plays, musicals and three films starring Rex Harrison (1967), Eddie Murphy (1998) and then Robert Downey Jr (2020) as the Doctor.

Associated stories

The sequel, The Voyages of Doctor Doolittle, won the Newbury Medal in 1923. Further Dolittle stories include Dr Dolittle’s Return, Dr Dolittle’s Puddlebury Adventures, and Gub-Gub’sBook, An Encyclopaedia of Food.