The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle

Notes

• First sequel to The Story of Doctor Dolittle (1920)
• Those first two novels were revised for 1988 reissue in belated "centenary" editions (Delacorte Press, hc, and Dell Yearling, tp).   "The original Dolittle texts were marred by a sprinkling of gratuitous racial epithets. ... But these blemishes were all removed in an undated 52d printing of Story, from which I read to my two sons around 1970. A reference to 'darkies' had been altered to 'people', 'work with niggers' had become 'work hard', and several other unfortunate locutions had been rendered admirably innocuous. ...   "The centenary edition's new excisions and revisions are far more extensive. The present editors obviously hope to obliterate every emotionally tinted word. Thus, though much of ''Story'' takes place in Africa, we hear no reference to skin coloration. ..." --Selma G. Lanes NY Times 1988-08-28 "Children's Books: Doctor Dolittle, Innocent Again" (linked above)

1st ed. {{OCLC|302257}}, with summary and list of Contents -- "New York : Fred[superscript k] A. Stokes Co., 1922" -- "ix pages, 2 leaves, 364 pages" Publ date (inferred) and price from advertisements by the publisher NY Times 1922-10-15 p61 ("for Holiday giving"), -10-29 p61 ("just published")

Lofting is known to be the original illustrator of front covers as well as interiors for the Doctor Dolittle series. For this volume, viewed as e-copy at HathiTrust Digital Library (HDL), the front cover illustration is identical to that of the frontispiece.

HDL provides full view of one copy

• with original cover, illustrated endpapers, and complex frontispiece plus lettered guardsheet
• title page illustrated, with publisher street address and date
• Contents, p.vii-ix, lists Prologue and 60 roman-numeral chapters in six parts: Part One, ch I-XV, ... Part Six, ch I-VII Within Part I, for instance, chapter headings are "The First Chapter: The Cobbler's Son"; "The Second Chapter: I Hear of the Great Naturalist"; and so on.
• Illustrations, p.[xi-xii], lists 20 including frontispiece plus one "(in colors)" That one is a plate not included in the pagination; 18 b/w illustrations are full-page, captioned, unnumbered but included in the pagination.
• text spans p1-364 In the Prologue, p1-2, nominal author Tommy Stubbins explains that he now writes as an old man, from memory of events in which he participated, with permission that Dolittle granted years ago. In the first book he had written of earlier events "from those who had known him".