The Story of Doctor Doolittle
being the history of his peculiar life at home and astonishing adventures in foreign parts
Hugh Lofting
Published: 1920
Pages: 180
Dolittle is an English gentleman who finds himself in the wrong occupation, a doctor of people, and gradually withdraws from society becoming a poor down and out town recluse. One day his English speaking pet parrot Polynesia lets him in on a secret that animals have a language of their own. Dolittle, now able to understand the complaints of animals, becomes a successful and world-renowned doctor of animals. Animal language is the central device of the series - in an age when every Disney film features English speaking animals it seems almost normal, but Lofting makes it seem new and marvelous. Indeed, the animals don