The Story of Doctor Dolittle

by Hugh Lofting Narrated by LibriVox Community

Overview

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)

Editorial Reviews

School Library Journal

Gr 4-8-The story of Doctor Doolittle's adventures and his eventual return home with the miraculous animal who joined the family.

AudioFile

[Wanda McCaddon] has a great time hooting, greeting, barking, and grunting through this kick-off book in the famous children’s series. Her distinctive British intonations fit in perfectly with the settings…[McCaddon] attempts to give each animal its species-specific voice, and she succeeds with enthusiasm, levity, and gaiety…Winner of the AudioFile Earphones Award.”

New York Times bestselling author Jane Goodall

Any child who is not given the opportunity to make the acquaintance of this rotund, kindly, and enthusiastic doctor/naturalist and all of his animal friends will miss out on something important.”

From the Publisher

"Any child who is not given the opportunity to make the acquaintance of this rotund, kindly, and enthusiastic doctor/naturalist and all of his animal friends will miss out on something important."— Jane Goodall

English novelist Hugh Walpole

A work of genius.”

Product Details

BN ID:	2940169105476
Publisher:	LibriVox
Publication date:	08/25/2014
Sales rank:	668,179

Read an Excerpt

The First Chapter

Puddleby

Once upon a time, many years ago-when our grandfathers were little children-there was a doctor; and his name was Dolittle-John Dolittle, M.D. "M.D." means that he was a proper doctor and knew a whole lot.

He lived in a little town called Puddle by- on-the-Marsh. All the folks, young and old, knew him well by sight. And whenever he walked down the street in his high hat everyone would say, "There goes the Doctor! He's a clever man." And the dogs and the children would all run up and follow behind him; and even the crows that lived in the church tower would caw and nod their heads.

The house he lived in, on the edge of the town, was quite small; but his garden was very large and had a wide lawn and stone seats and weeping willows hanging over. His sister, Sarah Dolittle, was housekeeper for him; but the Doctor looked after the garden himself.

He was very fond of animals and kept many kinds of pets. Besides the goldfish in the pond at the bottom of his garden, he had rabbits in the pantry, white mice in his piano, a squirrel in the linen closet, and a hedgehog in the cellar. He had a cow with a calf too, and an old lame horse—twenty-five years of age-and chickens, and pigeons, and two lambs, and many other animals. But his favorite pets were Dab-Dab the duck, Jip the dog, Gub-Gub the baby pig, Polynesia the parrot, and the owl Too-Too.

His sister used to grumble about all these animals and said they made the house untidy. And one day when an old lady with rheumatism came to see the Doctor, she sat on the hedgehog, who was sleeping on the sofa, and never came to see him anymore, but drove every Saturday all the way to Oxenthorpe, another town ten miles off, to see a different doctor.

Then his sister, Sarah Dolittle, came to him and said,

"John, how can you expect sick people to come and see you when you keep all these animals in the house? It's a fine doctor would have his parlor full of hedgehogs and mice! That's the fourth personage these animals have driven away. Squire Jenkins and the Parson say they wouldn't come near your house againno matter how sick they are. We are getting poorer every day. If you go on like this, none of the best people will have you for a doctor."

"But I like the animals better than the 'best people,"' said the Doctor.

"You are ridiculous, said his sister, and walked out of the room.

So, as time went on, the Doctor got more and more animals; and the people who came to see him got less and less. Till at last he had no one left-except the Cat's-meat-Man, who didn't mind any kind of animals. But the Cat's-meat-Man wasn't very rich and he only got sick once a year-at Christmastime, when he used to give the Doctor sixpence for a bottle of medicine.

Sixpence a year wasn't enough to live on—even in those days, long ago; and if the Doctor hadn't had some money saved up in his money box, no one knows what would have happened.

And he kept on getting still more pets; and of course it cost a lot to feed them. And the money he had saved up grew littler and littler.

Then he sold his piano, and let the mice live in a bureau drawer. But the money he got for that too began to go, so he sold the brown suit he wore on Sundays and went on becoming poorer and poorer.

And now, when he walked down the street in his high hat, people would say to one another, "There goes John Dolittle, M.D.! There was a time when he was the best-known doctor in the West Country. Look at him now—he hasn't any money and his stockings are full of holes!"

But the dogs and the cats and the children still ran up and followed him through the town-the same as they had done when he was rich.

The Second Chapter

Animal Language

It happened one day that the Doctor was sitting in his kitchen talking with the Cat's-meat-Man, who had come to see him with a stomachache.

"Why don't you give up being a people's doctor, and be an animal doctor?" asked the Cat's-meat-Man.

The parrot, Polynesia, was sitting in the window looking out at the rain and singing a sailor song to herself. She stopped singing and started to listen.

"You see, Doctor," the Cat's-meat-Man went on, "you know all about animals-much more than what these here vets do. That book you wrote about cats—why, it's wonderful! I can't read or write myself-or maybe I'd write some books. But my wife, Theodosia, she's a scholar, she is. And she read your book to me. Well, it's wonderful—that's all can be said—wonderful. You might have been a cat yourself. You know the way they think. And listen: you can make a lot of money doctoring animals. Do you know that? You see, I'd send all the old women who had sick cats or dogs to you. And if they didn't get sick fast enough, I could put something in the meat I sell 'em to make 'em sick, see?"

"Oh, no," said the Doctor quickly. "You mustn't do that. That wouldn't be right."

"Ohl, I didn't mean real sick, answered the Cat's meat-Man. "Just a little something to make them droopy-like was what I had reference to. But as you say, maybe it ain't quite fair on the animals.

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