The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle

The story is narrated by Tommy Stubbins, now an old man looking back on the adventures of his youth. Polynesia, the Doctor's parrot, now nearly 250 years old, sits on his desk helping him remember.

Tommy is nine and a half years old, the son of a cobbler in the small English town of Puddleby-on-the-Marsh. Too poor to attend school, he spends his days exploring the countryside and dreaming of sailing away on the ships that pass through the river. One spring morning, he rescues a squirrel with a broken leg from a hawk. Joe, the local mussel man, and Matthew Mugg, the cat's-meat man, tell him the only person who can help is Doctor John Dolittle, a naturalist who can speak the languages of animals. The Doctor is away on a voyage, so Tommy nurses the squirrel and checks the Doctor's locked garden gate each day.

During a violent rainstorm, Tommy collides with a small, kind-faced man who invites him home to dry off. The stranger is Doctor Dolittle, far smaller and less imposing than Tommy imagined. Inside, animals greet the Doctor after a three-month absence, and Dab-Dab, a white duck who serves as housekeeper, hops downstairs carrying a lighted candle in her foot. That evening, the Doctor visits Tommy's home, sets the squirrel's leg with matchstick splints, and charms the family by playing the flute.

Tommy begins visiting daily, helping care for the Doctor's animals and exploring his garden, which contains a private zoo where animals stay voluntarily. Polynesia, the Doctor's gray parrot, returns after five years in Africa and teaches Tommy animal languages. Chee-Chee, the Doctor's monkey, arrives from Africa disguised in women's clothing. Tommy proposes living with the Doctor as an assistant in exchange for room, board, and lessons. The Doctor mentions Long Arrow, the son of Golden Arrow, a naturalist in Peru said to be the greatest in the world, though no European has ever met him. The Doctor has sent a message to Long Arrow via a purple bird of paradise named Miranda. After dinner with Tommy's parents, the Doctor persuades them to let Tommy live with him for two years.

Planning a voyage, the Doctor purchases a small boat called The Curlew. Needing a third crew member, they visit Luke the Hermit, an old friend, but find him gone. Jip, the Doctor's dog, reveals that Luke is in jail for killing a man in a Mexican gold mine 15 years earlier. At the trial, the Doctor demonstrates his abilities by conversing with the judge's own dog, and the judge allows Luke's bulldog, Bob, to testify. Through the Doctor's translation, Bob reveals that Luke's partners had conspired to murder him and that the killing was accidental. The jury returns a verdict of Not Guilty.

Miranda arrives bearing troubling news: Long Arrow has vanished. She traced him to Spider Monkey Island, a floating island off Brazil, where he was last seen entering the mountains to search for rare plants. The Doctor plays a game called "Blind Travel," jabbing a pencil into a random atlas page with his eyes closed. The pencil lands directly on Spider Monkey Island, and Miranda offers to guide them there.

Prince Bumpo Kahbooboo of Jolliginki, an old friend studying at Oxford, joins as the third crew member, and The Curlew departs. After putting several stowaways ashore, the crew diverts to the Capa Blanca Islands, a Spanish territory. Outraged by the local bullfighting tradition, the Doctor wagers Don Enrique Cardenas, a wealthy bull supplier, that if he can outperform the great matador Pepito de Malaga, bullfighting must end forever. Speaking to the bulls in cattle language, the Doctor makes them perform tricks and chase the terrified matador from the ring. Polynesia collects winnings from a side bet, the crew buys provisions, and they flee the harbor ahead of an angry mob.

During the Atlantic crossing, the Doctor catches a silver fidgit, a small fish that speaks scattered English words learned in an aquarium. The fish describes the great glass sea snail, an enormous ancient creature with a transparent shell, living at the bottom of the ocean. The Doctor realizes the snail could carry him inside its shell to explore the deep sea.

A violent storm splits The Curlew in half. Tommy awakens alone on wreckage, but Miranda finds him and brings porpoises to push his raft 40 miles to the Doctor. The porpoises then carry the reunited party to Spider Monkey Island, where they encounter hostile Indians on a cold, withered shore.

In the mountains, the Doctor catches a jabizri beetle, a rare insect, with a tiny picture-letter wrapped around its leg. He deciphers the letter as a message from Long Arrow: The naturalist and his companions are trapped inside a cave by a rockslide. Following the beetle back to its home, they locate a massive stone slab sealing the cave and dig it free. Inside stands Long Arrow, seven feet tall with an eagle feather in his hair. The two naturalists discover they both speak eagle language and communicate through it. Nine companions are rescued alongside Long Arrow, and the formerly hostile Popsipetel tribe embraces the Doctor with gratitude.

The Doctor discovers the Popsipetels have never learned to make fire and fashions a fire drill, astonishing the village. He recruits 200 whales to push the drifting island toward warmer waters. When the neighboring Bag-jagderag tribe attacks to steal the Popsipetels' corn, the Doctor, Long Arrow, and Bumpo fight until Long Arrow and Bumpo fall wounded. Polynesia arrives with an army of 60 to 70 million black parrots from the South American mainland who rout the enemy. The Doctor dictates peace terms requiring the two tribes to help each other.

Elected king of both tribes and renamed Jong Thinkalot, the Doctor is crowned in a vast natural amphitheater called the Whispering Rocks. The crowd's thunderous roar topples a legendary boulder into a dead volcano, where it crashes through into a hollow air chamber beneath the island. Spider Monkey Island sinks to the ocean floor, never to float again. The Doctor builds the city of New Popsipetel with proper infrastructure, holds court each morning, and teaches school each afternoon. Months pass, and his companions grow homesick, but the Doctor insists he cannot abandon his people.

Polynesia hatches an escape plan when the great glass sea snail appears in a shallow bay, its tail sprained after the island settled onto the snail's deep-ocean home. The Doctor treats the injury and begins learning to communicate with the creature. Polynesia secretly arranges for the snail to offer the Doctor passage to England inside its shell. Long Arrow, returning from Brazil with a remarkable collection of medicinal plants, urges the Doctor to carry their combined discoveries to the wider world. Torn between duty and opportunity, the Doctor removes the ceremonial crown placed on him at his coronation and lays it on the sand.

At midnight, the party climbs into the snail's transparent shell, carrying the Doctor's notebooks, Long Arrow's collection, and the Doctor's beloved old hat. For five and a half days they cross the ocean floor, passing undersea mountains, forests of sea plants, and the shadowy hulks of wrecked ships. On the sixth day, the snail crawls onto a strip of gray sand at the mouth of a river. A fine drizzling rain falls. Jip sniffs the air ecstatically, and Chee-Chee hears Puddleby church clock striking four. The Doctor picks up his old black bag, remarks that there is something attractive about England's bad weather when you have a kitchen fire to look forward to, and they set off through the fog, just in time for tea.