Hugh Lofting
HUGH LOFTING was born in Maidenhead in 1886. Having been schooled in Derbyshire, he travelled to the United States to study civil engineering. He enlisted in the Irish Guards during the First World War, sending home imaginative letters to his children during his service, which became the starting point for the famous Doctor Dolittle series, twelve volumes of which were eventually published, beginning in 1920. Badly wounded, he was discharged in 1919, and went to live with his family again in the United States, where he remained for the rest of his life. His only book for adults, the long poem Victory for the Slain, was published in 1942. He died in 1947, at the age of 61.
