Ray Bradbury, Dandelion Wine

Joshua Grasso (East Central University)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 3.2.4: American (US) Writing and Culture: Postwar and Contemporary, 1945-present.
Vol. editors: Sofia Ahlberg (Uppsala University), Patrick Chura (University of Akron), Emory Elliott (University of California, Riverside), Dale Enggass (University of Utah), Christopher Hugh Gair (University of Glasgow), Matthew Hofer (University of New Mexico), Stephen E. Meats (Pittsburg State University), Kerry Myler (Birmingham Newman University), Justin Parks (UiT - The Arctic University of Norway), Nick Selby (University of East Anglia)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1957

Places

United States (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Novel

Resources

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In his loosely autobiographical novel,

Dandelion Wine

(1957),

Ray Bradbury re-imagined the myth of American childhood as a haunted fairy tale that exists at the intersection of Norman Rockwell and EC Comics. The pull of his fictional landscape has become so influential to generations of readers that it is difficult to imagine how we lived—or dreamed—without it. For behind every story of preteen kids stumbling upon a mutilated body in the woods (

Stand By Me

) or secretly raising an extra-terrestrial while hiding from zealous FBI agents (

E.T.

), are the wild, affectionate tales that comprise this miraculous ode to childhood. While the book draws on Bradbury’s own experiences growing up in Waukegan, Illinois, the book’s true provenance is in the imagination of adolescence, where…

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2558 words

Citation: Grasso, Joshua. "Dandelion Wine". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 11 August 2023 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=5740, accessed 24 April 2024.]

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