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THE STORY OF DOCTOR DOLITTLE

“A little town called Puddleby-on-the-Marsh”

THE

Story of

DOCTOR DOLITTLE

BEING THE

HISTORY OF HIS PECULIAR LIFE

AT HOME AND ASTONISHING ADVENTURES

IN FOREIGN PARTS. NEVER BEFORE PRINTED.

TOLD BY HUGH LOFTING ILLUSTRATED BY THE AUTHOR

Published by FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY at 443 FOURTH AVENUE, NEW YORK.

A. D. 1920

WITH AN INTRODUCTION TO THE TENTH PRINTING

BY HUGH WALPOLE

Frederick A. Stokes Company

into foreign languages

First Printing, Aug. 24, 1920 Second Printing, Dec. 17, 1920 Third Printing, April 16, 1921 Fourth Printing, July 7, 1921 Fifth Printing, Sept. 1, 1921 Sixth Printing, Oct. 26, 1921 Seventh Printing, Dec. 5, 1921 Eighth Printing, April 3, 1922 Ninth Printing, Aug. 18, 1922 Tenth Printing, Nov. 28, 1922 Eleventh Printing, April 2, 1923

Printed in the United States of America

ALL CHILDREN

CHILDREN IN YEARS AND CHILDREN IN HEART

I DEDICATE THIS STORY

INTRODUCTION TO THE TENTH PRINTING

THERE are some of us now reaching middle age who discover themselves to be lamenting the past in one respect if in none other, that there are no books written now for children comparable with those of thirty years ago. I say written for children because the new psychological business of writing about them as though they were small pills or hatched in some especially scientific method is extremely popular to-day. Writing for children rather than about them is very difficult as everybody who has tried it knows.

It can only be done, I am convinced, by somebody having a great deal of the child in his own outlook and sensibilities. Such was the author of “The Little Duke” and “The Dove in the Eagle’s Nest,” such the author of “A Flatiron for a Farthing,” and “The Story of a Short Life. ” Such, above all, the author of “Alice in Wonderland. ” Grownups imagine that they can do the trick by adopting baby language and talking down to their very critical audience. There never was a greater mistake. The imagination of the author must be a child’s imagination and yet maturely consistent, so that the White Queen in “Alice,” for instance, is seen just as a child would see her, but she continues always herself through all her distressing adventures. The supreme touch of the white rabbit pulling on his white gloves as he hastens is again absolutely the child’s vision, but the white rabbit as guide and introducer of Alice’s adventures belongs to mature grown insight.

Geniuses are rare and, without being at all an undue praiser of times past, one can say without hesitation that until the appearance of Hugh Lofting, the successor of Miss Yonge, Mrs. Ewing, Mrs. Gatty and Lewis Carroll had not appeared. I remember the delight with which some six months ago I picked up the first “Dolittle” book in the Hampshire bookshop at Smith College in Northampton. One of Mr. Lofting’s pictures was quite enough for me. The picture that I lighted upon when I first opened the book was the one of the monkeys making a chain with their arms across the gulf. Then I looked further and discovered Bumpo reading fairy stories to himself. And then looked again and there was a picture of John Dolittle’s house.