![]() What’s to be done? Doctor Dolittle is bemused. ![]() ![]() (An elderly lady sits upon a prickly hedgehog and so on.) Business falls off, until Docotor Dolittle’s only client remaining is the local Cat’s-meat-Man, who visits once a year at Christmas to get a remedy for indigestion. The good Doctor has a fondness for animals, and as he progressively fills his home with creatures, a tipping point is reached when the animal residents start causing problems with patients. Written in simple, frequently staccato sentences, the book introduces us to Doctor Dolittle, M.D., who is a prosperous and well-liked physician in the small town of Puddleby-on-the-Marsh. The Story of Doctor Dolittle, based on a series of illustrated letters the author wrote from the Great War trenches to his young sons back home in England, was published in book form in 1920, to immediate popularity. But I don’t feel right in just passing it over undiscussed, either. I don’t think I have the resources (time or energy wise) to do this topic – racism in “beloved” vintage children’s books – justice. This edition: McClelland and Stewart, 1962. The Story of Doctor Dolittle by Hugh Lofting ~ 1920. ![]()
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