5 h 52 minAudiobook9 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at cost
Audiobook edition · 5 h 52 minPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
In San Francisco’s crowded streets, appetite, fear and chance can matter more than a person’s choices.
The Third Circle brings together short stories by Frank Norris, with the title story leading into San Francisco’s Chinatown. To many outsiders of the time, this crowded quarter seems like a city hidden inside a city. Norris brings his eye for streets, strong feeling and sudden danger to fiction that moves quickly.
These tales explore people driven by forces they barely control: appetite, heredity, money and chance. Norris’s American naturalism puts pressure on the idea of free and noble choice. Here, the author of McTeague, The Octopus and The Pit works on a smaller canvas, offering a way into his writing without the length of his novels.
What you’ll discover
- A city within a city Enter the title story’s Chinatown, a crowded quarter that outsiders rarely understand.
- Lives under pressure Explore how appetite, fear and money shape people whose choices are never entirely their own.
- Chance against choice Discover Norris’s naturalist view of people caught between personal desire and forces beyond control.
- Strong feeling, sudden danger Find short, fast-moving tales with an eye for city streets and restless human impulses.
- Norris on a smaller canvas Meet the novelist through short fiction that gives his strong feelings and sudden dangers room to unfold.
Who will love it
Readers who love short stories with a sting, mysteries left open, ghostly shivers and vivid pictures of old San Francisco will feel at home here.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A harmless lark opens a door into Chinatown
- Six drunk men, one dead body, no answer
- A boxer's potato salad and a baby's coffin
- Respectable men break loose or lose their grip
- Flags, duels and the voice of a distant homeland
- Gifted men let their best fire go out
- An outlaw's island and a lonely last dinner
- Ordinary lives hide wilder selves beneath them
- Many mysteries are left deliberately unanswered
- Norris tells each tale in a distinct voice
Who’s who
- Harriett Ten EyckA bright young woman from the East who lets a street tattooist ink a butterfly on her finger during a lark in Chinatown.
- ManningA pearl diver turned Plaza bum who knows Chinatown's hidden corners and guides the narrator through them.
- Paul SchusterA cheeky, respectable floorwalker who, at forty-one, suddenly wants to drink, brawl and break every rule he has kept.
- ToppanA young explorer back from Tibet, torn between his planned expedition and the shallow woman he loves.
- Grettir AsmundsonAn outlaw called the Strong who holds the island of Drangey against his enemies with his brother Illugi.
- Manning VerrillThe sole survivor of the Last Man Club, terrified of death as the annual dinner approaches.
- Buldy JonesA giant Yale pitcher turned art student whose kicking of a Frenchman draws him into a duel.
- ShotoverA young American of old family who climbs City Hall to defend the flag on Saint Patrick's Day.
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- The key ideas in about 9 minutes, to read today.
- Paperback
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- Hardcover
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The Third Circle
by Frank Norris · 1909
A tattooed butterfly, a house with blinds and a caged lion: Norris leads you through sixteen dark tales.
Medium level5–10 hours to readEnglish
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In short
Who is the woman who vanishes from a Chinatown restaurant with a tiny butterfly inked on her little finger? Who stabbed a man in a shuttered house during a binge that six drunk gentlemen cannot remember?
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A harmless lark opens a door into Chinatown
The collection opens with a warning. San Francisco's Chinatown has three circles, the narrator says. The guides show the first, do not show the second, and no one ever hears about the third.
In the Seventy Moons restaurant on Waverly Place, Tom Hillegas and Harriett Ten Eyck, both from the East and engaged to be married, sit among lanterns and incense jars. A fortune-teller inks a tiny butterfly on the little finger of her left hand. Hillegas jokes that she can never commit a crime without being known. Then he goes downstairs, meets a courteous merchant in a blue robe, and lingers to talk. When he climbs the stairs again, Harriett is gone, and no white man ever sees her again.
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Which edition is right for me
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas of the whole book in about 9 minutes. A good first look, or a refresher.
Details
- First published
- 1909
- Language
- English
- Reading time
- 3 h 50 min
- Level
- Medium level
Cite this edition
Norris, Frank. The Third Circle. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-third-circle.
Norris, F. (2026). The third circle. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-third-circle (Original work published 1909)
Norris, Frank. The Third Circle. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-third-circle.
@book{norris2026third,
author = {Norris, Frank},
title = {The Third Circle},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-third-circle},
note = {First published 1909}
}
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What is The Third Circle about?
It is a collection of sixteen short tales by Frank Norris. They begin in San Francisco's Chinatown and travel to mining camps, the desert, Paris, Iceland and a skyscraper banquet hall, with mysteries, comedy and shocks along the way.
What does the third circle of Chinatown mean?
The opening tale says Chinatown has three parts: the one guides show, the one they hide, and the one no one hears about. The third circle is the secret underworld the story goes on to visit.
Is The Third Circle one story or many?
It holds sixteen separate tales, including The House With the Blinds, Shorty Stack, Pugilist, Toppan, Dying Fires and Grettir at Drangey. Each stands on its own, so you can read them one at a time.
The author
Frank Norris
1870–1902 · American novelist and journalist
Frank Norris was an American novelist and a pioneer of literary naturalism who died at just thirty-two; McTeague, his unflinching story of greed and ruin in San Francisco, remains one of the era's defining novels.
More by Frank Norris
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