Hugh Lofting

Hugh Lofting was a famous British writer, born in 1886 in Maidenhead, England. As a child he started expressing a great love towards animals and when he was a kid he had a little zoo.

When he had finished his studied in America and England he started working as an engineer in South America and Africa. After a few years of wandering, he came back to the USA and married a New York woman. Since he was always prone to writing he became a writer.

Hugh started writing short stories and humorous theater pieces. When the First World War started he joined the army in Belgium and realized the role that the animals played in combat, mostly horses, and that if they got hurt they had no right to any kind of treatment.

He started writing letters in which he presented himself as doctor Dolittle and he wrote them to his kids, Colin and Elizabeth. His wife convinced him to merge the letters into a story about a doctor who can talk to animals. The story first appeared in 1922 and it was a great success. Lofting died in 1947.