La Fantome de l'Opera was originally published in the French magazine Le Gaulois as a serial novel. The novel was published as a result of some moderate success in La Gaulois, but it did not sell well as a novel. Although The Phantom of an Opera is now an international classic, it has been out of print and unpopular throughout some of the past 100 years. The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux was the inspiration for Andrew Lloyd Webber's Phantom of the Opera, which is Broadway's longest-running musical to date.
The Phantom of the Opera is one of today's most popular ghost stories. Although in the plot of The Phantom of the Opera, it is unclear if Erik, the main character, is a ghost or a human being, the eerie and supernatural occurrences that take place in the opera house make for a thrilling ghost story. Leroux alludes to Erik being merely a man by the use of the character of Madame Giry, who insists she knew Erik as a boy from a Paris freak show.
The story of Phantom of the Opera takes place in the Paris Opera House, also known as the Palais Garnier, as it was designed by Charles Garnier in the late 1800s. Leroux took several real-life attributes of the Opera House and incorporated them into his novel. At the Paris Opera House in 1896, the chandelier fell, killing one person. In Leroux's Phantom of the Opera, Erik is the one who cuts down the chandelier. During construction of the Paris Opera House, there were problems with leaks and flooding under the building. In Leroux's novel, Erik lives in a river underneath the Opera House.
There have been multiple film, theatrical and book adaptations of Leroux's work, including the long-running Broadway musical, Andrew Lloyd Webber's the Phantom of the Opera. It is rumored that Lloyd Webber plans on making a sequel musical adapted from a novel sequel to Phantom of the Opera by Frederick Forsyth, entitled the Phantom of Manhattan. Some Phantom of the Opera fans are up in arms about the book sequel by Forsyth because he greatly discounts Leroux's original story in the prologue of Phantom of Manhattan.
The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux is not recommended for young children to read because of frightening content and the complicated language featured in the book. If your child is interested in reading the novel, they should have no problem getting through the book at age 12 if they are interested enough in the material. To get your child to comprehend the novel, you may want to show them the silent film version of Phantom of the Opera starring Lon Chaney, or take them to the musical. This way, they can compare what they are reading to the plot lines of the movie and musical.