书名：The Phantom of the Opera 歌剧魅影
难度：Lexile蓝思阅读指数730
作者：Caston Leroux 加斯通·勒鲁
出版社名称：Signet
出版时间：2010
语种：英文
ISBN：9780451531872
商品尺寸：10.1 x1.8x 17.2 cm
包装：简装
页数：272 （以实物为准）

The Phantom of the Opera《歌剧魅影》是法国作家加斯通·勒鲁的经典成名作，在文学史上具有十分重要的地位。小说以一个记者的第一人称角度，讲述了一个“歌剧院鬼魂案件”。层层递进、牵动人心的故事情节，使得这部小说发表一个世纪以来，一直风靡全球，受到全世界读者的追捧。Signet Classic的此版本，还附有科学家兼科幻小说家Dr. John L. Flynn撰写的介绍语，以及《纽约时报》奇幻小说畅销作家J.R. Ward写的后记。帮助读者更加深入地了解作品，更加透彻地通读作品。
Filled with the spectacle of the Paris Opera House in the nineteenth century, this classic work of suspense remains a riveting journey into the dark regions of the human heart. 

The Phantom of the Opera is a novel by French writer Gaston Leroux. It was first published as a serialisation in Le Gaulois from September 23, 1909, to January 8, 1910. The novel is partly inspired by historical events at the Paris Opera during the nineteenth century and an apocryphal tale concerning the use of a former ballet pupil’s skeleton in Carl Maria von Weber’s 1841 production of Der Freischütz. It has been successfully adapted into various stage and film adaptations, most notable of which are the 1925 film depiction featuring Lon Chaney and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s 1986 musical.
With an Introduction by Dr. John L. Flynn and a new Afterword by J.R. Ward
“A Gothic novel of romance, honour and tragedy with a creepy, obsessive underbelly.” —Daily Telegraph
“A venerable, much-adapted story of grand, delicate feelings and gothic creepiness.” — New York Times
“Mixes horror and romance in equal measure.”—Guardian

The tale begins as an investigation into the strange stories of an “Opera ghost,” legendary for scaring performers as they sit alone in their dressing rooms or walk along the building’s labyrinthine corridors. Some even think they’ve seen the ghost in evening clothes moving in the shadows. But it isn’t until the triumphant performance of beautiful soprano Christine Daaé that the Phantom begins his attacks — striking terror in the hearts of everyone in the theater. A story that has captured the imagination for a century, The Phantom of the Opera continues to this day as an unparalleled work of sheer entertainment. Except the whole copy of the novel, there is also an Introduction by Dr. John L. Flynn and a new Afterword by J.R. Ward.

Gaston Leroux (1868-1927) was a French journalist, playwright, and detective/thriller writer. After beginning his career as a crime reporter and war correspondent, he lived an adventurous life that took him to Scandinavia, Eastern Europe, and even into North Africa disguised as an Arab. His high-spirited, often dangerous, escapades and questioning nature provided much of the background and plot material for his sensational mystery and adventure stories, particularly those starring his reporter/sleuth Joseph Rouletabille. One of his most famous detective novels, The Mystery of the Yellow Room, was published in 1907. His works have been called “among the finest examples of the detective stories we possess.” But Leroux’s best-known story is The Phantom of the Opera(1911), whose macabre hero has been played in films by classic horror film stars Lon Chaney and Claude Rains. 
 
Dr. John L. Flynn is a Chicago-born author, university professor, psychologist, and science-fiction enthusiast. Among his published words are Cinematic Vampires, Dissecting Aliens, Visions in Light and Shadow, and Phantoms of the Opera. A lifelong fan of Gaston Leroux, Dr. Flynn was inspired to write his definitive study of the Opera Ghost after seeing Michael Crawford on Broadway in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Tony Award-winning musical. In 1997, he switched gears from writing and literature to study clinical psychology. Today, he lives in Baltimore and is a department chair at Baltimore City Community College.

J. R. Ward is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of numerous novels, including the Black Dagger Brotherhood series. With millions of copies of her books in print, she is at the forefront of the urban fantasy/paranormal romance genre.

Is It the Ghost?
It was the evening on which MM. Debienne and Poligny, the managers of the Opera, were giving a last gala performance to mark their retirement. Suddenly the dressing-room of La Sorelli, one of the principal dancers, was invaded by half-a-dozen young ladies of the ballet, who had come up from the stage after “dancing” Polyeucte. They rushed in amid great confusion, some giving vent to forced and unnatural laughter, others to cries of terror. Sorelli, who wished to be alone for a moment to “run through” the speech which she was to make to the resigning managers, looked around angrily at the mad and tumultuous crowd. It was little Jammes—the girl with the tip-tilted nose, the forget-me-not eyes, the rose-red cheeks and the lily-white neck and shoulders—who gave the explanation in a trembling voice:
“It’s the ghost!” And she locked the door.
Sorelli’s dressing-room was fitted up with official, commonplace elegance. A pier-glass, a sofa, a dressing-table and a cupboard or two provided the necessary furniture. On the walls hung a few engravings, relics of the mother, who had known the glories of the old Opera in the Rue le Peletier; portraits of Vestris, Gardel, Dupont, Bigottini. But the room seemed a palace to the brats of the corps de ballet, who were lodged in common dressing-rooms where they spent their time singing, quarreling, smacking the dressers and hair-dressers and buying one another glasses of cassis, beer, or even rhum, until the callboy’s bell rang.