Gaston Leroux Books in Order

Gaston Leroux is a French journalist turned author of renowned detective fiction. He is best known for crafting the timeless novel The Phantom of the Opera (Le Fantôme de l'Opéra, 1910), which has been immortalized in numerous film and stage productions, including the 1925 film starring Lon Chaney and Andrew Lloyd Webber's 1986 musical. Leroux's early life saw him studying law in Paris and later inheriting a substantial fortune, which he squandered before finding stability as a court reporter and theater critic for L'Écho de Paris in 1890. He further honed his journalism skills as an international correspondent for Le Matin, witnessing pivotal events such as the Russian Revolution in 1905. Leroux's experiences covering the investigation of the Paris opera house, where a hidden cell beneath the building held prisoners from the Paris Commune, would later influence his writing. In 1907, he abandoned journalism to focus on fiction, eventually forming a film company and publishing his first mystery novel, Le mystère de la chambre jaune, in 1907.