THE
Story of
DOCTOR DOLITTLE
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





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