Dandelion Wine is a nostalgic autobiographical fantasy in which the author forms a collage of isolated parts and melds them together. Since many chapters have isolated significance, some chapters have been summarized to give a broader idea of what the novel is about.
Waking up early in the morning, Douglas Spaulding employs “magic” to awaken to townspeople. It is the first day of summer in 1928, and out in the forest with his father and brother Tom, he has a revelation and feels alive for the first time. Summer starts with new sneakers and Douglas is able to convince shopkeeper Mr. Sanderson to give them to him. Douglas shows Tom a notebook in which he is recording events happening in his summer. He records revelations and rituals. These include his observations on the other characters in the tale and his delights and despair of death, time, and change. His best friend moves away, he sees the tragedy in the death of Colonel Freeleigh and the impossible love of Bill and Helen and the demise of the Happiness Machine, he bemoans the loss of the trolley and other changes in the way things are done. By the end of the novel, Douglas gets very sick and decides he is going to die, but a traveling man named Mr. Jonas, who always has interesting things to give people, helps Douglas realize he wants to live.
Tom has a few vignettes of his own as well. One night Mrs. Spaulding worries that Douglas has not yet come back from playing so she takes Tom out into the dark night and the the edge of the ominous ravine. There Tom has an epiphany that a person is totally alone in their life and that life truly is loneliness and isolation. Both he and his mother are frightened for Douglas, but just as it seems like the ravine will triumph over them, Douglas returns without a care in the world.
Town jeweler Leo Auffmann insists that Grandfather and Douglas should not talk about dull and sad things. They suggest that Leo should make a “Happiness Machine.” Leo decides to do just that. Leo sits with his wife who tells him that they don’t need a Happiness Machine, but Leo is adamant. Still obsessed with making the machine, he asks if his wife is happy and his wife responds sarcastically. Leo then later works relentlessly to achieve his goal. He ends up making the machine, but it only disseminates sorrow and makes him realize happiness is his home and his family.
Mrs. Bentley is an elderly woman relatively new to the town. She meets a few of the children but does not like them when they sneer that she was never actually a young girl and that she has been old her whole life. After thinking about what her deceased husband would say, she decides to live in the present and embrace being old.
The thirty-something journalist Bill Forrester strikes up a friendship with Helen Loomis, an elderly woman who never married but traveled to exotic and fascinating places. He admits to her he saw a picture of her when she was young and fell in love with her. The two spend afternoons together before she dies, her telling him stories about her life and both wishing they’d met when they were the same age.
Mr. Tridden, the trolley motorman, tells the town children that the trolley is being phased out and the bus service starts the following day. This distresses the children because they love the trolley’s sounds and sparks and quirks.
Miss Fern and Miss Roberta had purchased the Green Machine, a charming electric vehicle that did not require a license and was quiet and elegant, a few years back. Now, though, they are frightened because they accidentally hit a man with it and ran away from the scene. They hide in their attic and decide the Green Machine must be hidden away. Douglas Spaulding relays through their brother that he saw everything and everything is okay, but the women are still shaken.
Colonel Freeleigh is known as the “Time Machine” by the local boys, who gather at his feet and listen to him tell tales of the Civil War and the last march of the Plains buffalo and more. The Colonel is old and ill, however, and is forced to stay in his home and not overexert himself. He decides to call an old friend in Mexico City so he can listen to the sounds of the magical, faraway place he once traversed. He dies in peace while on the phone.
Elmira Brown is certain that her neighbor and fellow member of the Honeysuckle Ladies Club, Clara Goodwater, is a witch. She firmly believes that Clara casts spells on her and harms her and manipulates the other women into always voting for Clara as the club’s president. Elmira confronts her and Clara denies it. At the next meeting, Elmira denounces Clara and tries to get the women to vote for her, but begins to feel sick and stumbles away. Clara pulls out a wax doll with thumbtacks in it. Elmira falls down a flight of stairs and Clara and the other women are horrified. Clara promises to never use black magic again and that Elmira can be president.
Not all is safe and pleasant in the town - the Lonely One, a killer of women, stalks the ravine. Lavinia Nebbs is not afraid of him and is sure that on a particular night she and her two friends will make it to the movies and home again safely. Once alone crossing the ravine, though, she believes she is being followed and begins to frantically run from her pursuer. She makes it home and thinks she is safe, but a man is there in her home. She stabs him with sewing scissors and he dies.
Aunt Rose visits the Spaulding family and is full of comments and suggestions about Grandma’s cooking and how her kitchen could be more organized. This messes with Grandma’s food and she becomes distressed, thinking it is forever ruined. The family kicks Aunt Rose out and Douglas sets her kitchen to right.
The end of the novel is very similar to the beginning. Tom and Douglas realize summer is over and school is starting soon. It is now autumn and the air is colder and the porch swing is put away. Up in his tower Douglas tells people to get ready for bed and turn out the lights.
