The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Story of Doctor Dolittle, by Hugh Lofting

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Title: The Story of Doctor Dolittle

Author: Hugh Lofting

Posting Date: September 13, 2008 [EBook #501]
Release Date: April, 1996

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE STORY OF DOCTOR DOLITTLE ***

Produced by Charles Keller. HTML version by Al Haines.

THE
Story of
DOCTOR DOLITTLE

by

Hugh Lofting

BEING THE
HISTORY OF HIS PECULIAR LIFE
AT HOME AND ASTONISHING ADVENTURES
IN FOREIGN PARTS NEVER BEFORE PRINTED.

TO
ALL CHILDREN
CHILDREN IN YEARS AND CHILDREN IN HEART
I DEDICATE THIS STORY

INTRODUCTION

There are some of us now reaching middle age who discover themselves to
be lamenting the past in one respect if in none other, that there are
no books written now for children comparable with those of thirty years
ago. I say written FOR children because the new psychological business
of writing ABOUT them as though they were small pills or hatched in
some especially scientific method is extremely popular today. Writing
for children rather than about them is very difficult as everybody who
has tried it knows. It can only be done, I am convinced, by somebody
having a great deal of the child in his own outlook and sensibilities.
Such was the author of "The Little Duke" and "The Dove in the Eagle's
Nest," such the author of "A Flatiron for a Farthing," and "The Story
of a Short Life." Such, above all, the author of "Alice in Wonderland."
Grownups imagine that they can do the trick by adopting baby language
and talking down to their very critical audience. There never was a
greater mistake. The imagination of the author must be a child's
imagination and yet maturely consistent, so that the White Queen in
"Alice," for instance, is seen just as a child would see her, but she
continues always herself through all her distressing adventures. The
supreme touch of the white rabbit pulling on his white gloves as he
hastens is again absolutely the child's vision, but the white rabbit as
guide and introducer of Alice's adventures belongs to mature grown
insight.