FIRST PRINTING

Gaston Leroux

Before Rupert Julian’s 1925 film adaptation of The Phantom of the Opera, few knew much about the novel it was based on or the work’s original author, Gaston Leroux. One of the most popular detective and mystery authors of his time, Leroux was born in Paris in 1868 and attended a boarding school in Normandy, the College d‘Eu, from which he received his baccalaureate in 1886. A talented student, Leroux attended law school in Paris, though he was not to practice law for long. Awarded a law degree in 1889, he was by 1891 working full-time as a journalist, writing arts criticism and reporting on court cases for the paper L’Écho de Paris.

Leroux’s skills impressed the editors at the popular daily Le Matin, and they hired him in 1894 as a roving correspondent and investigative reporter. Adventurous, even fearless, Leroux would stop at nothing to get the best take on a story and sometimes donned disguises to pursue promising leads. He relished work on location in Africa, Europe, and Asia, and was a first-hand witness to the Russian Revolution of 1905. His personal life was unconventional; estranged from his wife, he lived for many years with Jeanne Cayatte, a woman he met in 1902 but did not marry until 1917. The couple had two children.

Leroux achieved major success as a fiction writer with the publication of Le Mystère de la chambre jaune (1907; The Mystery of the Yellow Room) and the sequel Le Parfum de la Dame en noir (1908-1909; The Perfume of the Lady in Black), which featured popular character Joseph Rouletabille, an investigative reporter. Beginning in 1909, The Phantom of the Opera was published serially in the newspaper Le Gaulois. Sales were small, reviews were lukewarm, and there was little evidence that the work would outlive its first printings or eclipse the fame of Leroux’s other titles. But in 1925, as the cinema became increasingly popular, Universal Studios adapted Phantom for the silent screen. The film was a success, the first of more than a dozen adaptations of Phantom produced in the twentieth century, including Andrew Lloyd Webber’s long-running musical, which premiered on Broadway in 1988 and is still running. The author lived to see the world rediscover his horrifying mystery, although he perhaps could not have foreseen its ultimate longevity. Gaston Leroux died in 1927 in Nice, France.

The World of Gaston Leroux and

The Phantom of the Opera

1841 One of the works that will greatly influence Gaston Leroux’s writing—Edgar Allan Poe’s The Murders in the Rue Morgue—is published.

1868 Gaston Louis Alfred Leroux is born on May 6 in Paris to Dominique-Alfred Leroux and Marie Bidault.

1871 Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass is published. The Royal Albert Hall opens in London.

1872 George Eliot’s Middlemarch is published in book form.

1874 French novelist and critic Jules-Amédée Barbey d‘Aurevilly publishes Les Diaboliques (The Fiends).

1883 French naturalist writer Guy de Maupassant’s Une Vie (A Life) and Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island are published.

1885 H. Rider Haggard publishes King Solomon’s Mines.

1886 A good student, Leroux receives his baccalaureate degree in Normandy from the College d’Eu and then studies law in Paris. Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is published.

1887 Spending much of his extracurricular time composing poetry and fiction, Leroux begins to publish his work in various journals. Arthur Conan Doyle’s A Study in Scarlet , the first Sherlock Holmes story, is published.

1888 Jack the Ripper commits a rash of murders in London.

1889 Leroux is awarded a law degree and works as a law clerk; he spends his free time writing.

1891 Leroux works full-time as a journalist; he is a court reporter and arts critic for the newspaper L‘Écho de Paris. Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray is published.

1893 In December anarchist Auguste Vaillant throws a bomb into the Chamber of Deputies while it is in session.

1894 When Vaillant is sentenced to death by guillotine, Leroux reports the court decision in Le journal de Paris. On the strength of his report, the prestigious Paris daily Le Matin offers him a position; traveling as a correspondent for Le Matin until 1906, he covers stories from locations in Europe, Asia, and Africa. French president Sadi Carnot is assassinated.

1895 H. G. Wells’s The Time Machine is published.

1897 Bram Stoker’s Dracula is published.

1899 For Le Matin, Leroux covers the case against wrongfully convicted army officer Alfred Dreyfus.

1901 Leroux receives a promotion and hefty salary increase from Le Matin.

1902 Estranged from his wife, Marie Lefranc, Leroux begins a long-term affair with Jeanne Cayatte.