Doctor Dolittle's Circus [*SIGNED*]

New York: Frederick A. Stokes Company. Very Good-. (c.1924). First Edition. Hardcover. (decorated orange cloth with illustrated paper front-cover label; no dust jacket) [a good sound copy (front hinge a little weak, but intact), with some smudging and soiling to the covers and a few tiny stains on the spine (nothing too obnoxious, but enough to give the book an overall "used" appearance), slight rippling in the lower sections of the first 25 pages or so, just a bit of softening to the corners; there's a bookplate on the front pastedown, but fortunately the endpaper illustrations are duplicated in the back of the book where they are completely unblemished; there's also a gift inscription on the half-title page which, in combination with the bookplate, speaks to this copy's interesting provenance (read on)]. SIGNED and generically INSCRIBED by the author on the verso of the frontispiece: "Sincerely Yours / Hugh Lofting." The fourth book in the Dolittle series (although as aficionados will quickly tell you, in terms of the overall narrative of the Good Doctor's adventures, it falls into second place chronologically), in which Dr. D., financially strapped following his voyage to Africa, hires the pushmi-pullyu out to a traveling circus -- which inevitably leads to a deeper involvement in the circus business, especially when he discovers that the other animals therein are not being well-treated. This was one of the three books that constituted the combined source material for the first DD film, the 1967 musical starring Rex Harrison. The bookplate on the front pastedown (of The Walter Seltzers), taken in conjunction with the gift inscription on the half-title page ("Virginia Newburg / Love - From - / Mother / 1925"), establishes the book's Hollywood provenance: the inscribee was the daughter and only child of silent film actress Jane Novak (1896-1990); as an adult, Virginia (known by family and friends as "Mickey") was married for many years to agent-turned-producer Walter Seltzer, hence the bookplate. Signed by Author .