The Story of Doctor Dolittle

The adventures of a kind-hearted doctor, who is fond of animals and understands their language, as he travels to Africa with some of his favorite pets to cure the monkeys of a terrible sickness. Hugh John Lofting (January 14, 1886 - September 26, 1947) was a British author, trained as a civil engineer, who created the character of Doctor Dolittle - one of the classics of children's literature. He was born in Maidenhead, England, to English and Irish parents. His early education was with the Jesuits, after which he went to the United States, completing a degree in civil engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He traveled widely as a civil engineer before enlisting in the Irish Guards to serve in World War I. Not wishing to write to his children of the brutality of the war, he wrote imaginative letters which were the foundation of the successful Doctor Dolittle novels for children. Seriously wounded in the war, he moved with his family to Connecticut in the U.S.A. He was married three times and had three children, one of whom, his son Christopher, is the executor of his literary estate.