The Phantom of the Opera is Gaston Leroux’s masterpiece of horror and romance. Written in serial form from 1909-1910 for Le Gaulois, it was released as a novel in 1910 and translated into English the following year. An immediate publishing sensation, the book was quickly adapted for the stage and screen, most famously for the 1925 silent film starring Lon Cheney and then in 1986 by Andrew Lloyd Weber, which became the longest running musical in Broadway history.
The novel relates the story of a ghost – a phantom – who haunts the world-famous Paris Opera House. After a young understudy named Christine Daaé is tapped to sing at a retirement party for one of the opera’s managers, the management receives a letter from the ‘Opera Ghost’ demanding that Christine be allowed to sing the lead role in Faust, the next opera on the bill. But the opera management dismisses the request as a prank, casting their preferred soprano, Carlotta, in the role. The Phantom retaliates, reducing Carlotta’s voice to a croak and dropping a chandelier on the audience at the opera house, killing a patron.
A fierce tug-of-war ensues between the Phantom and Christine’s lover Raoul. Eventually, Christine is kidnaped by the Phantom and Raoul pursues her into the bowels of the opera house, eventually discovering the Phantom’s secret lair and confronting his rival.
A classic of gothic horror and romance, Gaston Leroux’s ‘The Phantom of the Opera’ is presented here in its original and unabridged format.
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Gaston Leroux (1868-1927) was a French journalist and author whose best known work – The Phantom of the Opera – has been adapted numerous times for the stage and screen. Born in Paris in 1868, Leroux was the illegitimate child of Marie Bidaut and Dominique Leroux (who married a month after his birth). A direct descendant of William II of England (the son of William the Conquerer), Leroux studied to become a lawyer, but after inheriting millions of francs he abandoned thoughts of a law career and lived wildly off his inheritance, nearly bankrupting himself. Almost out of money entirely, Leroux turned to writing, becoming a court reporter, a theater critic and ultimately an international correspondent for the Paris newspaper ‘Le Matin’ in 1893. By 1907, he had abandoned journalism and turned to fiction. In 1919, he and a parter, Arthur Bernède, formed the film company Société des Cinéromans, where they wrote novels and turned them into silent films. During this time, Leroux created the popular fictional detective Joseph Rouletabille for the story ‘The Mystery of the Yellow Room.’ The character is often characterized as the French Sherlock Holmes and he appeared in a half-dozen sequels. From 1909 to 1910, Leroux serialized the novel ‘The Phantom of the Opera, ‘ in Le Gaulois, releasing the completed book in 1910 and the English translation the following year. An immediate success, the rights to the book were snapped up by film and stage companies, most notably for the 1925 film featuring Lon Cheney as the Phantom. In 1986, the composer Andrew Lloyd Weber turned it into a musical which subsequently became the longest-running Broadway musical in history. Leroux was made a Chevalier de la Legion d’honneur in 1909. He died in Nice, France, in 1927 at the age of fifty-eight.
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