Gaston Leroux

Gaston Louis Alfred Leroux was a French journalist and author, best known for his detective fiction. He is most famously known for his novel, The Phantom of the Opera (Le Fantôme de l'Opéra), which has been adapted into numerous films and stage productions, including the 1925 film starring Lon Chaney and Andrew Lloyd Webber's 1986 musical. The book was also the basis of the 1990 novel Phantom by Susan Kay.

Before turning to fiction, Leroux had a successful career in journalism. He studied law in Paris and after graduating in 1889, he began working as a court reporter and theater critic for L'Écho de Paris. His most significant journalism work came when he started working as an international correspondent for the Paris newspaper Le Matin. Leroux was present at and covered major events such as the Russian Revolution in 1905 and the investigation of an opera house in Paris, which became a ballet house. The basement of the opera house held prisoners from the Paris Commune, who were the rulers of Paris during much of the Franco-Prussian war.

Leroux left journalism in 1907 and began writing fiction. In 1909, he and Arthur Bernède formed their own film company, Société des Cinéromans, to simultaneously publish novels and turn them into films. Leroux's first mystery novel, Le mystère de la chambre jaune (1908; The Mystery of the Yellow Room), featured the amateur detective Joseph Rouletabille. Leroux's contribution to French detective fiction is considered comparable to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's in the United Kingdom and Edgar Allan Poe's in America. Leroux passed away in Nice on April 15, 1927, due to a urinary tract infection.