The Classic Mystery Collection - Arthur Conan Doyle [43]
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Gaston Leroux
Leroux's novels
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 Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's in the United Kingdom and Edgar Allan Poe's in America. Leroux died in Nice on April 15, 1927, of a urinary tract infection.
Leroux's novels
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)
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Biography of Edgar Allan Poe
Life and career | Death | Literary and artistic theory | Legacy and lore | Selected bibliography | Poe in popular culture
Edgar Allan Poe (January 19, 1809 - October 7, 1849) was an American poet, short story writer, playwright, editor, critic, essayist and one of the leaders of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of the macabre and mystery, Poe was one of the early American practitioners of the short story and a progenitor of detective fiction and crime fiction. He is also credited with contributing to the emergent science fiction genre. Poe died at the age of 40. The cause of his death is undetermined and has been attributed to alcohol, drugs, cholera, rabies, suicide (although likely to be mistaken with his suicide attempt in the previous year), tuberculosis, heart disease, brain congestion and other agents
Life and career
Early life
Poe was born Edgar Poe to a Scots-Irish family in Boston, Massachusetts, on January 19, 1809, the son of actress Elizabeth Arnold Hopkins Poe and actor David Poe, Jr. He had a Mayflower descent, though, from Edward Fuller, through an American great-grandmother. The second of three children, his elder brother was William Henry Leonard Poe, and younger sister, Rosalie Poe. His father abandoned their family