Gaston Leroux

Rachel Perkins

Isabel Roche

Police reports, newspaper clippings, and witness interviews help a sleuthing narrator reconstruct the events of French author Gaston Leroux's most famous tale, one that had a significant impact on contemporary detective fiction. First published in 1911, The Phantom of the Opera has since been the basis for many adaptations, including Lon Chaney's silent film and Andrew Lloyd Webber's Tony award-winning Broadway musical. Today, this thriller is recognized not only as a compelling yarn with gothic overtones, but an engrossing romance of stirring theatricality.

The Phantom of the Opera

Ivy X

I had so much fun reading and annotating this. 

This is a book of obsession, man-babies, and pity. 

Quotes
- "...I want to have a wife like everybody else and to take her out on Sundays. I have invented a mask that makes me look like anybody. People will not even turn round in the streets. You will be the happiest of women. And we will sing, all by ourselves, till we swoon away with delight. You are crying! You are afraid of me! And yet I am not really wicked. Love me and you shall see! All I wanted was to be loved for myself. If you loved me I should be as gentle as a lamb, and you could do anything with me that you pleased."

- Poor, unhappy Erik! Shall we pity him? Shall we curse him? He asked only to be "some one" like everybody else. But he was too ugly! And he had to hide his genius or use it to play tricks with, when, with an ordinary face, he would have been one of the most distinguished of mankind! He had a heart that could have held the empire of the world; and, in the end, he had to content himself with a cellar. Ah, yes, we must needs pity the Opera Ghost.

The Phantom of the Opera

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