Comedy that Wilder re-wrote from his own play The Merchant of Yonkers (1938), which was based on Johann Nestroy's comedy He Intends to Have a Fling (1842), which was in turn derived from John Oxenford's play A Day Well Spent (1835).
Dolly Levi, a matchmaker, pretends to help Horace Vandergelder, a prosperous and aging merchant of Yonkers, find a suitable second wife when actually she has designs on him herself. The action covers one day of misadventure during which Dolly proves herself so indispensable to Vandergelder that he decides to marry her.
The same day, two other plots unfold involving persons close to Vandergelder. Ermengarde, his niece, becomes engaged to Ambrose Kemper, an artist from whom Vandergelder has tried to separate her. Cornelius and Barnaby, the merchant's long-suffering clerks, escape to New York City, where they spend the most adventurous day of their lives. They experience embarrassing encounters with Vandergelder and meet Irene Molloy, a widowed milliner whom the merchant fancies and with whom Cornelius falls in love. When the young man proposes marriage, she accepts.