Information about Gaston Leroux

Gaston Louis Alfred Leroux (6 May, 1868, Paris, France – 15 April, 1927) was a French journalist, detective, and novelist.

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.

Leroux went to school in Normandy and studied law in Paris, graduating in 1889. He inherited millions of francs and lived wildly until he nearly reached bankruptcy. Then in 1890, he began working as a court reporter and theater critic for L'Echo 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.

He suddenly left journalism in 1907, and began writing fiction; in 1909, he made his own film company, Cinéromans. He first wrote a mystery novel entitled Le mystère de la chambre jaune (1908; The Mystery of the Yellow Room), starring the amateur detective Joseph Rouletabille. Leroux's contribution to French detective fiction is considered a parallel to Edgar Allan Poe's in America and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's in the United Kingdom.

Leroux died in Nice on April 15, 1927, of a urinary tract infection.

Leroux's novels

French Titles

The Adventures of Joseph Rouletabille

• 1907- Le mystère de la chambre jaune.
• 1908- Le parfum de la dame en noir.
• 1912- Rouletabille chez le tsar.
• 1914- Le château noir.
• 1914- Les étranges noces de Rouletabille.
• 1917- Rouletabille chez Krupp.
• 1921- Le crime de Rouletabille.
• 1922- Rouletabille chez les Bohémiens.

Adventures of Chéri-Bibi

• 1913- Chéri-bibi.
• 1913- Chéri-Bibi et Cécily.
• 1919- La nouvelle aurore : Palas et Chéri-Bibi & Fatalitas !.
• 1925- Le coup d' état de Chéri-Bibi.

Other novels

• 1897- Le petit marchand de pomme de terre frites.
• 1897- Un homme dans la nuit.
• 1902- Les trois souhaits
• 1902- Une petite tête.
• 1903- La double vie de Théophraste Longuet.
• 1908- Le roi mystère.
• 1908- L'homme qui a vu le diable.
• 1909- Le lys.
• 1909- Le fauteuil hanté.
• 1910- La reine de Sabbat.
• 1910- Le fantôme de l' Opéra.
• 1911- Balaoo.
• 1911- Le dîner des bustes.
• 1912- La hache d'or.
• 1912- L' épouse du soleil.
• 1913- Première aventures de chéri-Bibi.
• 1916- La colonne infernale.
• 1916- Confitou.
• 1916- L' homme qui revient de loin.
• 1917- Le capitaine Hyx - La bataille invisible.
• 1920- Le coeur cambriolé.
• 1920- Tue-la-mort.
• 1921- Le sept de trèfle.
• 1923- La poupée sanglante - La machine à assassiner.
• 1924- Le Noël du petit Vincent-Vincent.
• 1924- Not'olympe.
• 1924- Les ténébreuses : La fin d'un monde & du sang sur la Néva.
• 1924- Hardis-Gras ou le fils des trois pères.
• 1924- La coquette punie ou la farouche aventure.
• 1924- La femme au collier de velours.
• 1925- La mansarde en or.
• 1926- Les Mohicans de Babel.
• 1927- Les chasseurs de danses.
• 1927- Mister Flow.
• 1990- Pouloulou. (Found by Leroux's granddaughter in the attic.)

English Titles:

The Adventures of Joseph Rouletabille

• The Mystery of the Yellow Room (1908)
• The Perfume of the Lady in Black (1909)
• The Secret of the Night (1914)
• The Sleuth Hound aka The Octopus of Paris (1926)

Adventures of Chéri-Bibi

• Cheri-Bibi and Cecily aka Missing Men (1923)
• The Veiled Prisoner (1923)
• Wolves of the Sea aka The Floating Prison
• The Dark Road (1924)
• Nomads of the Night aka The Dancing Girl (1925)
• The New Idol (1928)

Independent works

• The Double Life (1904) aka The Man with the Black Feather (1912)
• The Bride of the Sun (1915)
• The Man Who Came Back From the Dead (1916)
• The Phantom of the Opera (1910)
• The Haunted Chair (1922)
• The Kiss that Killed (1924)
• The Machine to Kill (1924)
• The Adventures of a Coquette (1926)
• The Man of a Houndred Faces aka Mister Flow (1930)
• Balaoo
• Lady Helena
• The Vase of Camelry (1922)

External links

• About Gaston Leroux
• Works by Gaston Leroux at Project Gutenberg
• Books and Biography of Leroux, Gaston
• L'univers de Joseph Rouletabille (in French)
• Gaston Leroux At Find A Grave