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 doctor 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 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 duck), Chee-Chee (a monkey), Too-Too (an owl), the Pushmi-pullyu, and a white mouse later named simply "Whitey".
Video Doctor Dolittle
Inspiration
One inspiration for his character appears to be the Scottish surgeon John Hunter.
Maps Doctor Dolittle
Books
The Story of Doctor Dolittle: Being the History of His Peculiar Life at Home and Astonishing Adventures in Foreign Parts Never Before Printed (1920) begins the series. The sequel The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle (1922) won the prestigious Newbery Medal. The next three, Doctor Dolittle's Post Office (1923), Doctor Dolittle's Circus (1924), and Doctor Dolittle's Caravan (1926) take place during and/or after the events of The Story of Doctor Dolittle. Five more novels followed, and after Lofting's death in 1947, two more volumes of short, previously unpublished pieces appeared.
The books, in order of publication, are:
- The Story of Doctor Dolittle (1920)
- The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle (1922)
- Doctor Dolittle's Post Office (1923)
- Doctor Dolittle's Circus (1924)
- Doctor Dolittle's Zoo (1925)
- Doctor Dolittle's Caravan (1926)
- Doctor Dolittle's Garden (1927)
- Doctor Dolittle in the Moon (1928)
- Doctor Dolittle's Return (1933)
- Doctor Dolittle's Birthday Book (1936)
- Doctor Dolittle and the Secret Lake (copyrighted 1923, but not published until 1948)
- Doctor Dolittle and the Green Canary (1950)
- Doctor Dolittle's Puddleby Adventures (1952)
Gub Gub's Book: An Encyclopaedia of Food (1932) is purportedly written by the pig. It is a series of food-themed animal vignettes. In the text, the pretense of Gub-Gub's authorship is dropped; Tommy Stubbins, Dr. Dolittle's assistant, explains that he is reporting a series of Gub-Gub's discourses to the other animals of the Dolittle household around the evening fire. Stubbins also says that the full version of Gub-Gub's encyclopedia, which was an immense and poorly-organized collection of scribblings written by the pig in a language for pigs invented by Dr. Dolittle, was too long to translate into English.
Doctor Dolittle's Birthday Book (1936) is a little day-book illustrated with pictures and quotations from the earlier stories. It appeared between Doctor Dolittle's Return and Doctor Dolittle and the Secret Lake.
"Doctor Dolittle Meets a Londoner in Paris" is a short story included in The Flying Carpet, pp. 110-19 (1925), an anthology of children's short stories and poems with illustrations by Cynthia Asquith.
Chronology
The main events of The Story of Doctor Dolittle take place in 1819 or 1820, although the events of the early chapters seem to be spread over several years. The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle begins in 1839. Backstory references indicate that Dr. Dolittle travelled to the North Pole in April 1809, and already knew how to speak to some species of animals at that date, suggesting that the early chapters of The Story of Doctor Dolittle take place before that date. However, it is possible that the internal chronology is not consistent.
Adaptations
There have been a number of adaptations of the Doctor Dolittle stories in other media:
- 1928: Doktor Dolittle und seine Tiere (Doctor Dolittle and his Animals), a silent animated short in German by Lotte Reiniger
- 1933-1934: NBC radio series
- 1967: Doctor Dolittle musical starring Rex Harrison
- 1970-1972: Doctor Dolittle animated TV series, produced at DePatie-Freleng Enterprises for 20th Century Fox Television
- 1973: stage adaptation by the Philadelphia Boys Choir & Chorale, which was used during their concert tour to Belgium and Kenya
- 1995-2001: BBC audio books read by Alan Bennett
- 1998: Doctor Dolittle stage musical by Leslie Bricusse, based on the earlier film musical
- 1998: Dr. Dolittle and its sequels: Dr. Dolittle 2 (2001), Dr. Dolittle 3 (2006), Dr. Dolittle: Tail to the Chief (2008), and Dr. Dolittle: Million Dollar Mutts (2009), the first two starring Eddie Murphy, all five starring Kyla Pratt as his daughter, Maya
- 2007: stage musical adaptation by Theatreworks USA, written by Randy Courts and Mark St. Germain
- 2011: The Voyages of Young Doctor Dolittle direct-to-video animated movie, starring Jane Seymour, Jason Alexander, and Tim Curry
- 2019: The Voyage of Doctor Dolittle, a new live action reboot starring Robert Downey Jr., Michael Sheen, and Antonio Banderas.
Appearances in other languages
A Russian children's novel Doctor Aybolit (Doctor Oh-it-hurts) by Korney Chukovsky (first published in 1924) was loosely based on the stories of Doctor Dolittle. The original novel credited Lofting's work, as did Chukovsky in his memoirs.
Norwegian playwright, songwriter, and illustrator, Thorbjørn Egner, made an album called Doktor Dyregod (Doctor good-toward-animals) with songs and story based on Doctor Dolittle.
All the books in the series have been translated into Japanese by Ibuse Masuji.
See also
- List of Doctor Dolittle characters
- Saints and animal/plant life
References
External links
- The Voyages of Dr. Dolittle, full text
- Dr. Dolittle und seine Tiere on IMDb (1928 cartoon)
- Doctor Dolittle on IMDb (1970-1972 cartoon)
- The Voyages of Dr. Dolittle on IMDb (1984 cartoon)
- Doctor Dolittle first editions listed with images - https://sites.google.com/site/hughloftingfirsteditionsuk/
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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