Doctor Dolittle Archive, ca. 1930
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GUEST:
My grandfather, my father's father, was friends with Hugh Lofting, the author of Doctor Dolittle. He inscribed books to my father and they were read, obviously.
APPRAISER:
And the drawings?
GUEST:
I don't know if they were given for a purpose or an occasion, but this one is the cover of this book and that one is a plate from one of the other books.
APPRAISER:
Which I'll actually show, that right in here is the illustration for that one, which is, beautiful colors on it. And every book has an inscription, and he drew little drawings in them. Why were they friendly? How, what was the association?
GUEST:
My grandfather was in the movie business. Both of my grandparents were. He was a screenwriter, and I think that that is how they knew each other, just professionally, to begin with. I don't know if Hugh Lofting was in Hollywood-- that's where my grandparents were, in Hollywood.
APPRAISER:
You have a number of correspondence and letters.
GUEST:
Yes.
APPRAISER:
And they were talking about movies?
GUEST:
Right, so my grandfather knew some people at the Disney studio, he was trying to hook Disney up with Hugh Lofting to some sort of venture.
APPRAISER:
This is a very interesting collection. First of all, people love Doctor Dolittle. And whenever a movie comes out from a book, and especially when the movie's successful, that increases the value. Also, the books were incredibly popular. I mean, when you get a series like this and you see Doctor Dolittle here, Doctor Dolittle there, well, that means that the books were selling, and they were telling him, "Get me another one, get me another one." So people collect Doctor Dolittle books. Ideally, they'd be in mint condition, but one of the types of books that are normally in the poorest condition are children's books, because children read them. You have the books, they're varying editions, they're all in the early '20s and that period, signed. But what you also have that is really nice is, you have the two illustrations. They're signed on the back to your grandfather.
GUEST:
Yes.
APPRAISER:
This one is big, colorful, but it's an interior illustration. On the other one, though, the Doctor Dolittle's Post Office, you have the cover illustration. He did all the illustrations himself. The nine books that you have here, they'd probably run in the $2,000 range for the nine books. The letters would be in the $500 range. His illustrations don't show up. This one would, I would say, is about a $2,000 illustration. It's beautiful, but even though the other one's smaller, you have the cover illustration. It's probably about a $4,000 illustration. The price, if you add it all up, it's $8,500 at a retail level, and it's just a fabulous collection.
GUEST:
Well, that's great! My brother and sisters are not getting any of this.
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