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Hugh Lofting was born in Maidenhead in 1886. As a child he kept a miniature zoo and wildlife museum in his mother's linen cupboard and enjoyed making up stories for his family. He later studied engineering in London and the United States, and visited Canada, Africa and the West Indies. After his marriage in 1912 he settled in the United States. Hugh Lofting fought in the trenches during World War I and it was whilst observing the lack of compassion shown to the horses on the battlefields that the idea for Doctor Dolittle was born. He was the main character in letters Hugh sent home from the front to entertain his children. The successful publication of The Story of Doctor Dolittle in 1920 was followed by a further eleven books. In 1923 Hugh Lofting was awarded the Newbery Medal. He died in 1947.
Surprisingly, Dr. Dolittle stories keep turning up. In what Josephine Lofting heralds in her brief forward as the final selection of .... animal stories....published a number of years ago in the New York Herald ??... and in book form, there is a delightful round of adventures in the gently enduring Lofting sense of humor. Three after dinner stories by staunch members of the Home for Crossbred Dogs; a visit to the ?? by the doctor and Cheapside the London sparrow; a trip to Africa and the Land of the ??mbia Goo Goos, are all couched in the dignity of English sobriety and softly starred with jibes at social virtues of the nineteen teens. Dab Dab, Gub Gub, Polynesia, Tommy Stubbins and the rest, people boggy Puddleby-on-the-Marsh and the journeys abroad, and there is a good supply of the author's marvellously suggestive illustrations. (Kirkus Reviews)
