The phantom of the opera / Gaston Leroux

1. Is it the ghost?. -- 2. The new Margarita. -- 3. The mysterious reason. -- 4. Box five. -- 5. The enchanted violin. -- 6. A visit to box five. -- 7. Faust and what followed. -- 8. The mysterious Brougham. -- 9. At the masked ball. -- 10. Forget the name of the man’s voice. -- 11. Above the trap-doors. -- 12. Apollo’s lyre. -- 13. A master-stroke of the trap-door lover. -- 14. The singular attitude of a safety-pin. -- 15. Christine! Christine!. -- 16. Mme. Giry’s astounding revelations. -- 17. The safety-pin again. -- 18. The Commissary, the Viscount and the Persian. -- 19. The Viscount and the Persian. -- 20. In the cellars of the opera. -- 21. Interesting and instructive vicissitudes. -- 22. In the torture-chamber. -- 23. The tortures begin. -- 24. Barrels!... Barrels!... Any barrels to sell?". -- 25. The scorpion or the grasshopper: Which?. -- 26. The end of the ghost’s love story. -- Epilogue.

Gaston Leroux’s novel The Phantom of the Opera, first published in 1910, remained a perennial favorite throughout the twentieth century and into the early 2000s. It was adapted to several popular motion pictures and into one of the most successful stage musicals of all time. Its main character, Erik, is a romantic figure whose appeal reaches across different cultures and times. He is a sensitive soul, an accomplished composer and musician whose great unfinished work, Don Juan Triumphant, is described as breathtakingly beautiful by the one person he allows to hear it; he is an object of pity, whose face has been disfigured from birth, causing him to hide behind a silk mask; and he is hopelessly in love with a young woman whom he can never seriously hope will love him back. At the same time, he a dangerous, menacing figure, lurking in the hidden catacombs beneath the opera house and blackmailing those who will not bow to his whims. He can hear things said in privacy and can create catastrophes that might or might not be the accidents that they seem to be.