Hugh Lofting


Hugh John Lofting was an English author trained as a civil engineer, who created the classic children's literature character of Doctor Dolittle. It first appeared in illustrated letters to his children written by Lofting from the British Army trenches in World War I.

Personal life

Lofting was born in January 1886 in Maidenhead, Berkshire, to Elizabeth Agnes and John Brien Lofting. He was of English and Irish ancestry. His eldest brother was Hilary Lofting, who later became a novelist in Australia, having emigrated there in 1915.
Lofting was educated at Mount St Mary's College in Spinkhill, Derbyshire. From 1905 to 1906 he studied civil engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
He travelled widely as a civil engineer before enlisting in the Irish Guards regiment of the British Army in World War I. Not wishing to write to his children about the brutality of the war, he wrote imaginative letters which later became the foundation of the successful Doctor Dolittle novels for children. Seriously wounded in the war, in 1919 Lofting moved with his family to Killingworth, Connecticut. He was married three times and had three children, one of whom, his son Christopher, is the executor of his literary estate.

Doctor Dolittle

Hugh Lofting's character Doctor John Dolittle, an English physician from Puddleby-on-the-Marsh in the West Country, who could speak to animals, first saw light in the author's illustrated letters to children, written from the trenches during the 1914–1918 War, when actual news, he later said, was either too horrible or too dull. The stories are set in early Victorian England in the 1820s–1840s. He was living in Killingworth, Connecticut, while he wrote most of the instalments to the series.
The Story of Doctor Dolittle: Being the History of His Peculiar Life at Home and Astonishing Adventures in Foreign Parts Never Before Printed began the series and won the Lewis Carroll Shelf Award in 1958. The sequel The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle won Lofting the prestigious Newbery Medal. Eight more books followed, and after Lofting's death two more appeared, composed of short previously unpublished pieces.
The internal chronology of the books is somewhat different from the publishing order. The first book is followed by Doctor Dolittle's Post Office, Doctor Dolittle's Circus and Doctor Dolittle's Caravan. Only then follows the second book, The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle, continued by Doctor Dolittle's Zoo. After that, the publishing order is restored; Doctor Dolittle's Garden is followed by Doctor Dolittle in the Moon and Doctor Dolittle's Return, ending with Doctor Dolittle and the Secret Lake.

Other works for children

The Story of Mrs Tubbs and Tommy, Tilly, and Mrs. Tubbs are picture books aimed at a younger audience than the Doctor Dolittle books. They are about the old woman of the title and her pets, with whom she can speak, and the animals who help her out of trouble.
Porridge Poetry is the only non-Dolittle work by Lofting still in print. It is a lighthearted, colorfully illustrated book of poems for children. Noisy Nora 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 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.

''Victory for the Slain''

Victory for the Slain is Lofting's only work for adults. It consist of a single long poem in seven parts about the futility of war, permeated by the refrain "In war the only victors are the slain." It was published only in the United Kingdom.

Works

Lofting commented, "For years it was a constant source of shock to me to find my writings amongst 'juveniles'. It does not bother me any more now, but I still feel there should be a category of 'seniles' to offset the epithet."
  1. The Story of Doctor Dolittle
  2. The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle
  3. Doctor Dolittle's Post Office
  4. The Story of Mrs Tubbs
  5. Doctor Dolittle's Circus
  6. Porridge Poetry
  7. Doctor Dolittle's Zoo
  8. Doctor Dolittle's Caravan
  9. Doctor Dolittle's Garden
  10. Doctor Dolittle in the Moon /978-1612035369
  11. Noisy Nora
  12. The Twilight of Magic
  13. Gub Gub's Book: An Encyclopedia of Food
  14. Doctor Dolittle's Return
  15. Doctor Dolittle's Birthday Book
  16. Tommy, Tilly, and Mrs. Tubbs
  17. Victory for the Slain
  18. Doctor Dolittle and the Secret Lake
  19. Doctor Dolittle and the Green Canary
  20. Doctor Dolittle's Puddleby Adventures