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Doctor Dolittle: The Complete Collection #4
Doctor Dolittle The Complete Collection, Vol. 4: Doctor Dolittle in the Moon; Doctor Dolittle's Return; Doctor Dolittle and the Secret Lake; Gub-Gub's Book
The Voyage of Doctor Dolittle—the major motion picture starring Robert Downey Jr.—soars into theaters on April 12, 2019!
Discover the world of Doctor Dolittle with four stories from the beloved children’s series!
Doctor Dolittle in the Moon recounts when the good doctor travelled to the Moon! While there, he meets Otho Bludge the Moon Man, a Stone Age artist who was the only human on the Moon when it broke away from the Earth. The animals of the Moon flock to Doctor Dolittle, and he discovers how to communicate with the intelligent plants there. But will the lunar flora and fauna ever let him leave?
In Doctor Dolittle’s Return, Tommy Stubbins waits for Doctor Dolittle’s return from the Moon. When the Doctor gets home he is anxious to write about what he experienced. This proves more difficult than expected.
In Doctor Dolittle and the Secret Lake, Doctor Dolittle receives an urgent call to rescue his oldest friend, Mudface the Giant Turtle, who was a passenger on Noah’s Ark.
And in Gub Gub’s Book, readers can learn all about Gub Gub the pig, who was one of the first animals Doctor Dolittle spoke with. This book features stories from and about Gub Gub’s attempt to write an encyclopedia of food!
Discover the world of Doctor Dolittle with four stories from the beloved children’s series!
Doctor Dolittle in the Moon recounts when the good doctor travelled to the Moon! While there, he meets Otho Bludge the Moon Man, a Stone Age artist who was the only human on the Moon when it broke away from the Earth. The animals of the Moon flock to Doctor Dolittle, and he discovers how to communicate with the intelligent plants there. But will the lunar flora and fauna ever let him leave?
In Doctor Dolittle’s Return, Tommy Stubbins waits for Doctor Dolittle’s return from the Moon. When the Doctor gets home he is anxious to write about what he experienced. This proves more difficult than expected.
In Doctor Dolittle and the Secret Lake, Doctor Dolittle receives an urgent call to rescue his oldest friend, Mudface the Giant Turtle, who was a passenger on Noah’s Ark.
And in Gub Gub’s Book, readers can learn all about Gub Gub the pig, who was one of the first animals Doctor Dolittle spoke with. This book features stories from and about Gub Gub’s attempt to write an encyclopedia of food!
880 pages, Hardcover
Published November 12, 2019
13 people are currently reading
95 people want to read
About the author
Hugh Lofting
389 books186 followersHugh Lofting was a British author, trained as a civil engineer, who created the character of Doctor Dolittle — one of the classics of children's literature.
Lofting was born in Maidenhead, England, to English and Irish parents. His early education was at Mount St Mary's College in Sheffield, 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 that 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 United States. Lofting was married three times and had three children, one of whom, his son Christopher, is the executor of his literary estate.
"For years it was a constant source of shock to me to find my writings amongst 'juveniles,'" Lofting reported. "It does not bother me any more now, but I still feel there should be a category of 'seniles' to offset the epithet."
Doctor Dolittle
Hugh Lofting's doctor from Puddleby-on-the-Marsh who could speak to animals first saw light in the author's illustrated letters to 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, (in and around the 1840s, according to a date given in The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle). 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 and won the Lewis Carroll Shelf Award in 1958.The sequel, The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle (1922), won Lofting the prestigious Newbery Medal. Eight more books followed, and after Lofting's death two more volumes, composed of short unpublished pieces, appeared. The series has been adapted for film and television many times, for stage twice, and for radio.
Other Works for Children
The Story of Mrs Tubbs (1923) and Tommy, Tilly, and Mrs. Tubbs (1936) are picture books aimed at a younger audience than the Doctor Dolittle books. They concern the titular old woman, her pets (with whom she can speak) and the animals who help her out of trouble.
Porridge Poetry (1924) is the only non-Dolittle work by Lofting still in print. It is a lighthearted, colorfully illustrated book of poems for children.
Noisy Nora (1929) is a cautionary tale about a girl who is a noisy eater. The book is printed as if hand-written, and the many illustrations often merge with the text.
The Twilight of Magic (1930) is aimed at older readers. It is set in an age when magic is dying and science is beginning. This work is the only one of Lofting's books to be illustrated by another person (Lois Lenski).
Victory for the Slain
Victory for the Slain (1942) is Lofting's only work for adults, a single long poem in seven parts about the futility of war; the refrain "In war the only victors are the slain" permeates the poem. It was published only in the United Kingdom.
Lofting was born in Maidenhead, England, to English and Irish parents. His early education was at Mount St Mary's College in Sheffield, 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 that 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 United States. Lofting was married three times and had three children, one of whom, his son Christopher, is the executor of his literary estate.
"For years it was a constant source of shock to me to find my writings amongst 'juveniles,'" Lofting reported. "It does not bother me any more now, but I still feel there should be a category of 'seniles' to offset the epithet."
Doctor Dolittle
Hugh Lofting's doctor from Puddleby-on-the-Marsh who could speak to animals first saw light in the author's illustrated letters to 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, (in and around the 1840s, according to a date given in The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle). 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 and won the Lewis Carroll Shelf Award in 1958.The sequel, The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle (1922), won Lofting the prestigious Newbery Medal. Eight more books followed, and after Lofting's death two more volumes, composed of short unpublished pieces, appeared. The series has been adapted for film and television many times, for stage twice, and for radio.
Other Works for Children
The Story of Mrs Tubbs (1923) and Tommy, Tilly, and Mrs. Tubbs (1936) are picture books aimed at a younger audience than the Doctor Dolittle books. They concern the titular old woman, her pets (with whom she can speak) and the animals who help her out of trouble.
Porridge Poetry (1924) is the only non-Dolittle work by Lofting still in print. It is a lighthearted, colorfully illustrated book of poems for children.
Noisy Nora (1929) is a cautionary tale about a girl who is a noisy eater. The book is printed as if hand-written, and the many illustrations often merge with the text.
The Twilight of Magic (1930) is aimed at older readers. It is set in an age when magic is dying and science is beginning. This work is the only one of Lofting's books to be illustrated by another person (Lois Lenski).
Victory for the Slain
Victory for the Slain (1942) is Lofting's only work for adults, a single long poem in seven parts about the futility of war; the refrain "In war the only victors are the slain" permeates the poem. It was published only in the United Kingdom.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
July 17, 2023
Oficialmente, he terminado el último libro de Doctor Dolittle. Sinceramente, el libro "bonus", el de Gub-Gub, me parece muy pesado. Por muy corto que sea, es un personaje que nunca me ha gustado mucho y el humor en este caso, me parece muy forzado. He de decir que en general, es el volumen con menos ilustraciones, lo cual me parece una lástima. Hubiera estado muy guay ver algún dibujo de Itty, el gato lunar, pero bueno. En este caso, sí que tenemos bichitos interesantes (justo el anterior o Mudface, la tortuga). Aunque, repito, desde ese primer volumen en el que se burlan de todos los países, nada ha sido lo mismo.
Muy alegre de haberlo leído, creo que es de los mejores libros infantiles que hay.
Muy alegre de haberlo leído, creo que es de los mejores libros infantiles que hay.
July 13, 2021
Hugh Lofting continues his imaginative tour de force by having Doctor Doolittle travel to the moon. How? By a giant moth and oxygen generating flowers. He uses a little 'handwavium' when the moth tumbles through space, but no more than Star Wars.
The good Doctor is accompanied by his faithful scribe Stebbins, who's the narrator, Chee-chee the monkey, and Polynesia the parrot. Once there, they discover amazing vegetation and eventually animals. Of course, the Doctor learns their language and stories.
This book is not to be missed by Doctor Doolittle fans.
The good Doctor is accompanied by his faithful scribe Stebbins, who's the narrator, Chee-chee the monkey, and Polynesia the parrot. Once there, they discover amazing vegetation and eventually animals. Of course, the Doctor learns their language and stories.
This book is not to be missed by Doctor Doolittle fans.
March 15, 2021
I enjoyed Doctor Dolittle in the Moon and Doctor Dolittle's Return, they both felt closer to the first story of Doctor Dolittle and Stubbins. Secret Lake was alright and I skipped most of Gub-Gub's book as I didn't really enjoy most of it. I am glad to have read all the Doctor Dolittle books and remember reading them as a child. I was fond of them back then and I am still fond of them now. 3 out of 5 stars for this collection.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews