Doctor Dolittle's Return

Doctor Dolittle's Return is lighter and more comic than other Dolittle books. Tommy Stubbins waits for Doctor Dolittle's return from the Moon. When the Doctor returns he is anxious to write of what he has experienced. This proves more difficult than expected. The poignancy of the doctor's lunar experiences is juxtaposed with his hilarious attempts to be put into jail so he will be free of all responsibilities and will be able to write his book.

Hugh John Lofting was a British author who created the character of Doctor Dolittle - one of the classics of children's literature. His early education was at Mount St. Mary's College in Sheffield, after which he went to the United States, completing a degree in civil engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He enlisted in the Irish Guards to serve in World War I. Not wishing to write to his children of the brutality of the war, he wrote imaginative letters that were the foundation of the Doctor Dolittle novels.