Gaston Leroux is one of the originators of the detective story, and The Phantom of the Opera is his tour de force, as well as being the basis for the hit Broadway musical. A superb suspense story and a dark tale of obsession, Phantom has thrilled and entertained audiences in adaptations throughout the century.

This new translation--the first completely modern and Americanized translation--unfurls the full impact of this classic thriller for modem readers. It offers a more complete rendering of the terrifying figure who emerges from the depths of the glorious Paris Opera House to take us into the darkest regions of the human heart. After the breathtaking performance of the lovely Christine Daae and her sudden disappearance, the old legend of the "opera ghost" becomes a horrifying reality as the ghost strikes out with increasing frequency and violence--always with the young singer at the center of his powerful obsession. Leroux has created a masterwork of love and murder--and a tragic figure who awakens our deepest and most forbidden fears.

This is the only complete, unabridged modern Americanized translation available. Lowell Bair is the acclaimed translator of such Bantam Classics as Madame Bovary, Les Liaisons Dangereuses, and Candide.

FOREWORD, In Which the Author of This

singular Work Tells the Reader How He Was

Led to Become Certain that the Opera Ghost

Really Existed

1 Was It the Ghost?

2 The New Marguerite

3 In Which, for the First Time, Debierme and Poligny

  Secretly Give the New Managers of the Opera,

  Armand Moncharmin and Firmin Richard, the Real

  and Mysterious Reason for Their Departure from

  the National Academy of Music

4 Box Five

5 Continuation of"Box Five".

6 The Enchanted Violin

7 A Visit to Box Five

8 In Which Firmin Richard and Armand Moncharmin

  Dare to Have Faust Performed in a "Cursed" Opera House,

  and We See the Frightful Consequences

9 The Mysterious Brougham

10 Atthe Masked Ball

11 You Must Forget the Name of"the Man's Voice".

12 Above the Trapdoors

13 Apollo's Lyre

14 A Masterstroke by the Lover of Trapdoors

15 The Singular Behavior of a Safety Pin

16 "Christine！- Christine！".

17 Astonishing Revelations by Madame Giry,Concerning Her Personal Relations with the Opera Ghost

18 Continuation of"The Singular Behavior of a Safety Pin"

19 The Polieeman, the Viscount, and the Persian

20 The Viscount and the Persian

21 In the Cellars of the Opera

22 Interesting and Instructive Tribulations of a Persian in the Cellars of the Opera

23 In the Torture Chamber

24 The Torture Begins

25 "Barrels！ Barrels！ Any Barrels to Sell?"

26 The Scorpion or the Grasshopper？

27 End of the Ghost's Love Story

Epilogue