Gaston Louis Alfred Leroux was a French journalist and author of detective fiction.
In the English-speaking world, he is best known for writing the novel The Phantom of the Opera (Le Fantôme de l'Opéra, 1910), which has been made into several film and stage productions of the same name, such as the 1925 film starring Lon Chaney, and Andrew Lloyd Webber's 1986 musical. It was also the basis of the 1990 novel Phantom by Susan Kay.
Then in 1890, he began working as a court reporter and theater critic for L'Écho de Paris. His most important journalism came when he began working as an international correspondent for the Paris newspaper Le Matin. In 1905 he was present at and covered the Russian Revolution. Another case he was present at involved the investigation and deep coverage of an opera house in Paris, later to become a ballet house. The basement consisted of a cell that held prisoners in the Paris Commune, which were the rulers of Paris through much of the Franco-Prussian war.
The Phantom of the Opera was originally published as a poorly received serialized novel in 1909.
He was born on May 6, 1868 in Paris, France.
When he declared bankruptcy he had to work as a court reporter and a theater critic.
The Phantom of the Opera is seen as a version of Beauty and the Beast.
He was known to right mystery novels, and was seen as the French version of a fictional detective.
He loved to fish and sail.
He knew he wanted to be a writer at a young age.
He held a law degree, however since it took so long for him to complete it, by the time he had it, he discovered he didn’t want to pursue a career in that profession anymore.
Inspired by the works of Edgar Allan Poe, Stendhal, and Arthur Conan Doyle, Leroux wrote numerous novels of adventure, mystery, and horror, but also romance and fantasy.
0
0
