Fantoom

Published in 1990, this novel has become a favorite reading for many Phantom fans. English author Susan Kay has drawn her material from Gaston Leroux's world-famous work "The Phantom of the Opera", focusing on the captivating life of the title character: his birth in the French village of Boscherville, his painful departure from home, his experiences in a gypsy camp, his apprenticeship with an Italian master bricklayer, his fateful first love, his adventures in the Persian court, the construction of the new Paris Opera House, and, of course, the tragic events that take place in the catacombs of the Palais Garnier and culminate in the sacrifice and redemption of this great soul.

Let the author speak: "I had the feeling that the story we know as The Phantom of the Opera is actually only the tip of a mighty iceberg, and somewhere in the depths a vast human destiny awaits description - the story of a man driven to terrible evils, but who, in Leroux's words, still had "a heart that could hold the kingdom of the whole world."