The Story of Doctor Dolittle

Written by Hugh Lofting

Narrated by LibriVox Community

In The Story of Doctor Dolittle (1920), the first of Hugh Lofting's Doctor Dolittle books, we are introduced to the good doctor who gives up treating people after Polynesia, his parrot, teaches him animal languages. His fame in the animal kingdom spreads throughout the world and soon he sets off to cure a monkey epidemic in Africa, finding all sorts of exciting adventures on the way.

This recording is of the original edition, which is in the public domain. Later editions, which are still under copyright, changed some language and plot elements that are considered racially derogatory.
(Summary adapted from wikipedia.org by Annie Coleman)

• Language: English
• Publisher: LibriVox
• Release date: Aug 25, 2014

Hugh Lofting

Hugh Lofting (1886-1947) was an English writer, soldier, and civil engineer. Born in Berkshire, England, Lofting was raised in a family with Irish and English parentage. Educated at Mount St Mary’s College, Lofting matriculated at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he studied civil engineering between 1905 and 1906. After working for several years as a civil engineer, Lofting enlisted in the Irish Guards in order to fight in the Great War. Horrified by his experience in combat, Lofting wrote creative letters home to his wife and children that originated his legendary character Doctor Dolittle, a physician with the unique ability to speak with animals. Gravely wounded in France, Lofting returned home briefly before moving with his family to Connecticut. In 1920, he published The Story of Doctor Dolittle, the first in a series of fifteen novels and short story collections for children that have inspired numerous adaptations for theater, film, and television. In addition to these novels, Lofting published several other works for children—including picture books and poems—as well as Victory for the Slain (1942), a long antiwar poem and his only work written for adult readers.

Reviews for The Story of Doctor Dolittle

[Shaun Nigro · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

The story is good and the narrators themselves read well enough but it's a bit jarring with the individual chapter narrators being switched around, especially since most of the audio quality is not great.