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 physician 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 his 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 goose), Chee-Chee (a monkey), Too-Too (an owl), the Pushmi-pullyu,
and a white mouse later named simply "Whitey". Later on, in the 1925
novel Doctor Dolittle's Zoo, Whitey founds with the doctor's help the
Rat and Mouse Club, whose membership eventually reaches some 5000 rats
and mice.Doctor Dolittle's household does not include a cat, and the
animals associated with him express a strong anti-feline prejudice
(especially since mice play an increasingly important role). Only late
in the series, in the 1933 novel Doctor Dolittle's Return, is a very
special kind of cat introduced - a Moon Cat, whose kind developed very
different traits to Earth-bound cats and altogether stopped being
predators. Even so, the cat initially gets an extremely hostile
reception.
children's books by Hugh Lofting starting with the 1920 The Story of
Doctor Dolittle. He is a physician 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 his 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 goose), Chee-Chee (a monkey), Too-Too (an owl), the Pushmi-pullyu,
and a white mouse later named simply "Whitey". Later on, in the 1925
novel Doctor Dolittle's Zoo, Whitey founds with the doctor's help the
Rat and Mouse Club, whose membership eventually reaches some 5000 rats
and mice.Doctor Dolittle's household does not include a cat, and the
animals associated with him express a strong anti-feline prejudice
(especially since mice play an increasingly important role). Only late
in the series, in the 1933 novel Doctor Dolittle's Return, is a very
special kind of cat introduced - a Moon Cat, whose kind developed very
different traits to Earth-bound cats and altogether stopped being
predators. Even so, the cat initially gets an extremely hostile
reception.
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