McTeague: A Story of San Francisco

In a bustling San Francisco neighborhood, a massive yet gentle man runs a one‑room dental shop on Polk Street. He spends his Sundays in a slow, indulgent rhythm—hearty soup, steam beer, a pipe, and mournful tunes on his concertina—while the city rushes by outside his bay‑window. The routine reveals a life built on simple comforts and the quiet pride of a self‑made tradesman.

His bulk and clumsy strength hide a past of hard labor in the mining camps of Placer County, where he learned the trade from a traveling charlatan after his mother’s death left him a modest inheritance. Though he has gathered a modest clientele of shop girls and carriage conductors, his mind remains as lumbering as his body, content yet unaware of the forces that will soon disturb his orderly world. The novel opens a portrait of a man whose ordinary existence is poised on the edge of change.