The First Doctor Dolittle Collection: The Story of Doctor Dolittle, The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle & Doctor Dolittle's Post Office

Written by Hugh Lofting

Narrated by Phil Chenevert and Karen Savage

The First Doctor Dolittle Collection includes three full-length novels featuring Doctor Dolittle.
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 physician 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 his 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. 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 goose), Chee-Chee (a monkey), Too-Too (an owl), the Pushmi-pullyu, and a white mouse later named simply Whitey.
Included in this collection:
1. The Story of Doctor Dolittle, Being the History of His Peculiar Life at Home and Astonishing Adventures in Foreign Parts (1920), 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. It was one of the novels in the series which was adapted into the film Doctor Dolittle.
2. The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle was the second of Hugh Lofting's Doctor Dolittle books to be published, coming out in 1922. It is nearly five times as long as its predecessor and the writing style is pitched at a more mature audience. The scope of the novel is vast; it is divided into six parts and the illustrations are also more sophisticated. It won the Newbery Medal for 1923. It was one of the novels in the series that was adapted into the film Doctor Dolittle.
3. Doctor Dolittle's Post Office is the third of Hugh Lofting's Doctor Dolittle books. Set on the West Coast of Africa, the book follows the episodic format of most other books in the series.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Parolita Libro
• Release date: Mar 1, 2020

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.