LOFTING, Hugh — Doctor Dolittle in the Moon

[New York]: Frederick A. Stokes Co. 1928. Dr. Dolittle Meets The Man In The Moon Inscribed by Hugh Lofting LOFTING, Hugh. Doctor Dolittle in the Moon. Told and Illustrated by Hugh Lofting. [New York]: Frederick A. Stokes Co. [1928]. First edition. Inscribed by the Author on recto of Frontispiece. Octavo (8 x 5 3/8 inches; 203 x 137 mm.). [x], [i], [i, blank], 307, [1, blank], pp. Color frontispiece and numerous full-page line drawings throughout. Original purple cloth, front cover decoratively stamped and lettered in blue enclosing a pasted-on copy of the color frontispiece. Spine decoratively lettered in blue, color pictorial endpapers. A near fine copy. The inscription on the recto of the frontispiece reads "For/Betty Champness?/with best wishes/from/Hugh Lofting /New York/June 1/29". We have been unable to establish the identity of Betty Champness. This is the true first edition, preceding the London edition by several months. Doctor Dolittle in the Moon was intended to be the last of Hugh Lofting's Doctor Dolittle books, and differs considerably in tone from its predecessors. Doctor Dolittle has landed on the Moon and each day brings a new discovery. He meets Otho Bludge the Moon Man, a Stone Age artist who was the only human on the Moon when it broke away from the Earth. The animals of the Moon flock to Doctor Dolittle, and he discovers how to communicate with the intelligent plants there. But will the lunar flora and fauna ever let him leave? Hugh John Lofting (14 January 1886 - 26 September 1947) was a British author, trained as a civil engineer, who created the character of Doctor Dolittle, one of the classics of children's literature. He traveled widely as a civil engineer, before enlisting in the Irish Guards regiment of the British Army to serve in the First World War. Not wishing to write to his children about the brutality of the war, he wrote imaginative letters which later became the foundation of the successful Doctor Dolittle novels for children. .