Resumen
Resumen de McTeague: A Story of San Francisco
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You will enjoy this if you like vivid city portraits, stories where money and luck pull people apart, and characters so sharp you can hear them talk.
De qué trata este libro
Picture a Sunday afternoon on Polk Street in San Francisco. A huge dentist named McTeague eats dinner at two, drinks a pitcher of steam beer, falls asleep in his operating chair, and wakes to play six mournful tunes on a concertina. He wants only one thing more, a giant golden tooth hanging outside his window. How does a man this content end up with everything gone wrong?
McTeague: A Story of San Francisco was written by Frank Norris, who died in 1902. He sees people as creatures shaped by blood, money and chance. You meet the dentist, his friend Marcus, and Marcus's cousin Trina, whose broken tooth brings her to the Dental Parlors.
En este resumen
- 1McTeague lives a simple life above Polk StreetFree
- 2Love wakes a brute inside a gentle man
- 3Marcus steps aside and McTeague wins Trina
- 4A lottery ticket drops a fortune on Trina
- 5Envy breaks a friendship before the wedding
- 6Two quiet stories run beside the main one
- 7Marriage settles, then the money tightens its grip
- 8Gold changes everyone who longs for it
- 9Instinct, chance and the brute drive the plot
- 10Details, repetition and symbols carry the telling
Idea clave 1 de 10
McTeague lives a simple life above Polk Street
The book opens on a quiet Sunday. McTeague eats dinner at the car conductors' coffee shop, collects steam beer from Joe Frenna's saloon, and sinks into his operating chair.
He was once a car boy at a mine in Placer County, under a father who was a steady shift boss for thirteen days and a raging drunk every other Sunday. His mother wanted her son to rise. When a traveling dentist came to the mine, she sent the boy to learn the trade by watching. He is built like a draft horse, with hands as hard as wooden mallets, yet nothing about him is vicious.
His Dental Parlors are one crowded room above the post office, and below the bay window Polk Street plays out its day. His one dream is a gilded tooth hanging outside. Then Marcus Schouler, his only friend, mentions his cousin Trina, who broke a tooth and will come in tomorrow.
A calm life built on habit is one visit away from change.
That’s 1 of 10 key points.
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Go deeper: the whole of McTeague: A Story of San Francisco
About 7 h 50 min to read.Paperback, hardcover and large print, printed for you at cost, are on their way.Email me when it is printed
Who’s who
- McTeague
- A huge, slow-witted dentist who loves eating, beer and his concertina, and who dreams of a golden tooth for his window.
- Trina Sieppe
- A small, pale young woman with magnificent hair, thrifty to the bone, who wins five thousand dollars and cannot let it go.
- Marcus Schouler
- McTeague's loud, jealous friend, an amateur politician who gives up Trina in a grand gesture and regrets it for years.
- Maria Macapa
- The flat's maid of all work, who collects junk, sells lottery tickets and tells of a dinner set made of solid gold.
- Zerkow
- A red-haired ragman whose only passion is gold, and who is ready to believe anything about a lost golden service.
- Old Grannis
- A timid, gentle Englishman who binds old pamphlets and loves Miss Baker through a thin wall.
- Miss Baker
- A retired dressmaker with little false curls who sits close to the same wall and shares his quiet romance.
- Mr. Sieppe
- Trina's father, a small, self-important man who runs every family outing like a military campaign.
About this edition
Every format is free to start, and print and large print are at cost.
- LengthAbout 117,000 words
- Reading timeAbout 7 h 50 min
- FormatseBook, large-print eBook, audiobook, 15-minute summary; paperback, hardcover and large print at cost
- LanguagesEnglish and 14 other languages
Questions about McTeague: A Story of San Francisco
What is McTeague about?
It follows a San Francisco dentist named McTeague, who marries Trina Sieppe after she wins a lottery prize. Greed, jealousy and old instincts slowly pull their marriage apart, and the story moves from city streets toward a wider landscape.
Who is the Other Dentist in McTeague?
He is a rival dentist on Polk Street, a dandy in loud waistcoats who bets on greyhound races. McTeague envies him early on, and he returns later, offering to buy McTeague's big golden tooth.
Why does McTeague want a golden tooth?
A gilded molar hanging from his window is his one ambition, a sign of success and style for his Dental Parlors. Trina gives him one as a birthday present, and it becomes a symbol of his pride.
Is McTeague based on a true story?
Frank Norris drew on a real neighborhood in San Francisco and a newspaper account of a murder. The characters are invented, and the book is a novel of naturalism, written in the 1890s.
What is the main message of McTeague?
Norris shows how greed, chance and inherited instincts can ruin ordinary people. The book asks how much of life we choose, and how love can bend when money takes its place.
Cite this edition
Norris, Frank. McTeague: A Story of San Francisco. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/mcteague-a-story-of-san-francisco.
Norris, F. (2026). McTeague: A story of San Francisco. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/mcteague-a-story-of-san-francisco (Original work published 1899)
Norris, Frank. McTeague: A Story of San Francisco. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/mcteague-a-story-of-san-francisco.
@book{norris2026mcteague,
author = {Norris, Frank},
title = {McTeague: A Story of San Francisco},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/mcteague-a-story-of-san-francisco},
note = {First published 1899}
}
