"The Story of Doctor Dolittle (Being the History of His Peculiar Life at Home and Astonishing Adventures in Foreign Parts)", written by Hugh Lofting, is the first of his Doctor Dolittle books, a series of children's novels about a man who learns to talk to animals and becomes their champion around the world.

John Dolittle, MD. is a respected physician and quiet bachelor living with his spinster sister in the small English village of Puddleby-on-the-Marsh. His love of animals grows over the years and his household menagerie eventually scares off his human clientele, leading to loss of wealth. But after learning the secret of speaking to all animals from his parrot Polynesia, he takes up veterinary practice.