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Exceptionally rare first German edition of Doktor Dolittle und seine Tiere (The Story of Doctor Dolittle), published in 1926 by Williams & Co., Berlin-Charlottenburg. This is the first appearance of Hugh Lofting’s classic in the German language, translated by E. L. Schiffer (Edith Jacobsohn) with an introduction by Oskar Loerke. The book is inscribed, signed, and illustrated by Hugh Lofting on the half-title page. The inscription, in blue ink, is dated “Sept. 1927” to “George M. Bruestle” (likely the Connecticut painter George Matthew Bruestle) and includes a humorous self-caricature captioned in German: “Selbstbildnis im Jahre 1827” (Self-portrait in the year 1827). Lofting’s playful ink sketches are rarely encountered in German editions, making this a unique association copy. Bound in bright orange pictorial cloth with black cover design, the book retains its original pictorial dust jacket by Anna Reibstein-Albrecht (ARA), featuring Dolittle and his animal friends on the front an