Le Fantôme de l’Opéra is a multifaceted novel. It is a gothic novel, because it speaks of obscure presences, sadows, ghosts, fate and magic; it is a romantic novel, just as Gaston Leroux’s indolence was romantic, leading the author to a certain gloomy and bittersweet melancholy; it is a decadent novel, because its protagonist is a real dandy, theatrical and excessively elegant, who loves to surround himself with baroque furnishings, mirrors, velvet and gold, just as Wilde or Huysmans would have liked; it is a symbolist novel, filled with countless metaphors dear to fairy-tale narrative, such as the key, the ring, the kiss, the lake, the river; it is a surrealist novel, as Jean Cocteau declared, since it tells of dreams, vast and obsessive spaces, as in Louis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland; it is a modern novel that narrates the voyage into the inner depths of ourselves, connected to the world of Psychoanalysis and to Sigmund Freud; it is a detective novel, for the language of investigation that appears in certain passages and for its myriad of mysterious crimes; it is a love story that tells of an unhappy, unrequited passion. Le Fantôme de l’Opéra is a novel that contains many novels and many styles, and that touches us deeply because it speaks of emotions and feelings. It is a popular novel that tells stories about each one of us, even if these stories seem incredible. It is an extraordinary novel that inspired many other works: novels, films, television programs, circus performances, ice-skating phantasmagoria. It inspired these from its first appearance in 1910, to this day, and will continue to inspire others in years to come.

Laura Paola Pellegrini was born in Milano and she lives between Italy and New York. She went to school in Connecticut, USA and she got a doctor degree in French Literature at the University of Milano with the highest grade and cum laude. She worked as a public relation executive and she collaborated to the creation of the magazine, La Rivista Della California, founded and directed in San Francisco by the ex consul for Scientific Affairs, the late professor Giancarlo Masini, giving her contribution with several articles written both in English and in Italian. She is now devoting her activity to writing novels and she already published two books in Italy.