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Gaston Leroux

French author and journalist (1868–1927)

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In the English-speaking world, he is best known for writing the novel The Phantom of the Opera (French: Le Fantôme de l'Opéra, 1910), which has been made into several film and stage productions of the same name, notably the 1925 film starring Lon Chaney and Andrew Lloyd Webber's 1986 musical. His 1908 novel The Mystery of the Yellow Room is one of the most celebrated locked room mysteries.

Life and career

Leroux was born in Paris in 1868, the illegitimate child of Marie Bidaut and Dominique Leroux, who married a month after his birth. He claimed an illustrious pedigree, including descent from William II of England (in French, Guillaume le Roux), son of William the Conqueror, and social connections such as having been the official playmate of Prince Philippe, Count of Paris at the college d'Eu in Normandy. After schooling in Normandy and studying as a lawyer in Caen (graduating in 1889), He inherited millions of francs and lived wildly until he nearly reached bankruptcy. 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 1893. He was present at, and covered, the 1905 Russian Revolution.

He left journalism in 1907, after returning from covering a volcanic eruption and being immediately sent on another assignment without vacation time, and began writing fiction. In 1919, he and Arthur Bernède formed their own film company, Société des Cinéromans, publishing novels and turning them into films. He first wrote a mystery novel titled Le mystère de la chambre jaune (1908; English title: The Mystery of the Yellow Room), starring the amateur detective Joseph Rouletabille. Leroux's contribution to French detective fiction is considered a parallel to those of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in the United Kingdom and Edgar Allan Poe in the United States.

Leroux published his most famous work, The Phantom of the Opera, as a serial in 1909 and 1910, and as a book in 1910 (with an English translation appearing in 1911). Balaoo followed in 1911, which was made into a film several times (in 1913, 1927 and 1942).

Leroux was made a Chevalier de la Legion d'honneur in 1909. He died at age 58 in Nice, France, in 1927.

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