Doctor Dolittle’s Post Office

Doctor Dolittle’s Post Office came out in 1923 and is the third book in the series. The doctor and his animals are still on the journey home from the West African events of the first book, when they make a stop at Fantippo, a small kingdom on the coast where King Koko has decided to start a postal service. The doctor takes one look at the mess Koko has made of it and starts reorganizing.

The rest of the book covers what becomes the Swallow Mail, run by African swallows for animals across the world. There is a famous embedded story called The Story of the Animals’ Magazine, which functions as a kind of mini-anthology inside the larger book. There is a long sequence about a rescued slaving ship and the recovery of pearls from the bottom of the sea by the Whale Mail. The book is sometimes considered weaker than the first two because of its episodic structure. It also contains some of the most warmly imagined Doctor Dolittle inter-species cooperation in the whole series.