Lofting's talents lie in storytelling, in portraying swift action with multiple settings and crises. The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle is richer in literary techniques than The Story of Doctor Dolittle. For example, Dolittle himself does not appear until the third chapter of the story.

The reader's curiosity about him is aroused and heightened by the cat's meat's man's stories about him and by Tommy Stubbins's descriptions of the outside of the Doctor's home. The Doctor's character is skillfully delineated by Lofting's use of a foil character, the Colonel, who treats Tommy so condescendingly. Lofting even develops a more complex point of view, telling his story through Tommy's eyes rather than an omniscient narrator's.

Though Lofting's prose is usually plain and simple, he occasionally tries for evocative descriptions. In speaking of caged lions, Doctor Dolittle passionately asks, "What are they given in exchange for the glory of...