The 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) began 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) are all actually prequels (or "midquels", as they 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 Five more novels followed, and after Lofting's death in 1947, two more volumes of short unpublished pieces appeared.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 and the Secret Lake (1948)
- Doctor Dolittle and the Green Canary (1950)
- Doctor Dolittle's Puddleby Adventures (1952)
Gub-Gub's Book, An Encyclopaedia of Food (1932) was an associated book, purportedly written by the eponymous 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 explains 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) was a piece of merchandise produced during the gap between Doctor Dolittle's Return and Doctor Dolittle and the Secret Lake.
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—Anthony Burgess (b. 1917)
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—Gilbert Adair, British author, critic. Sunday Times: Books (London, April 21, 1991)