The Story of Doctor Doolittle: being the history of his peculiar life at home and astonishing adventures in foreign parts

Hugh Lofting

Jan 1920 · Frederick A. Stokes Company

About this ebook

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

Ratings and reviews

Doolittle est un anglais qui se trouve dans le faux métier, celui d’un médecin des gens, et peu à peu se retire de la société et devient un pauvre reclus au bout des ses ressources. Un jour, Polynésia, son perroquet qui parle anglias, lui dit un secret ; que les animaux ont leur propre langue. Maintenant qu’il puisse comprendre les plaintes des animaux, il devient un médecin des animaux très renommé dans le monde. Le langage des animaux est l’aspect ou le thème central de cette série, et dans un âge où chaque film Disney est basé sur des animaux qui parlent anglais, on peut se demander, “alors, quoi de nouveau?”, mais Lofting le rend de nouveau merveilleux. Car les animaux ne parlent pas anglais, mais un langage secret, qui n’est pas tout à fait irréelle, quand on considère “les horse whisperers” (les chuchoteurs aux chevaux) ou “la langue des dauphins”

I read this book wanting to remember what the story I listened to when I was younger was about. The version I was given was either censored slightly or everything went over my head because there were things said that aren't acceptable today. I was more surprised at how simple, and sometimes silly, the book was because I remember it making complete sense when I was little. That being said, I still enjoyed it. I was surprised how much I remembered.

Great story, you just have to forget the movie! Keep in mind the age in which the story was written. The rude parts are only near the beginning. The rest of the story is clean, with the silliness of talking animals.