Gaston Leroux was a French journalist, short-story writer, and novelist, and is most famous for his acclaimed novel, The Phantom of the Opera. A student of law, Leroux turned to journalism after spending his inheritance on a lavish lifestyle. Over a decade of work as a court reporter and theatre critic for the L ?cho de Paris served as inspiration for his series of successful detective novels featuring Joseph Rouletabille, an amateur sleuth, and Leroux s contributions to the French detective genre are considered as significant as those of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Edgar Allan Poe. Leroux died in 1927.