Hardcover 100% of proceeds go to charity! May have signs of use, wear and minor cosmetic defects.

Hardcover 100% of proceeds go to charity! May have signs of use, wear and minor cosmetic defects.

First edition, first printing. Fine in bright, crisp dust jacket. Hardcover.

First edition, first printing. Fine in bright, crisp dust jacket. Hardcover. 458 pp. A quite uncommon, particularly in first edition in this collectible condition. "The story of Erik, the child born disfigured, destined to become the Phantom of the Opera. It is the story of the simplest of heart's desires: to be loved...It is a story of power and darkness, of magic and murder, of sensuality and betrayal, and, ultimately, the eternal quality of love...". The original "Phantom of the Opera", a 1911 melodrama written by French author Gaston LeRoux inspired an iconic 1925/6 silent film starring "The Man of 1000 Faces" Lon Chaney, Sr. as Eric, another successful version in 1943 featuring Claude Rains as the Phantom, one of the all-time most successful musical stage plays (by Andrew Lloyd Weber, Charles Hart and Richard Stilgoe) that ran for over a quarter century in both London and New York, and a movie version of the play starring Gerard Butler and Emmy Rossum. But none of these adaptations delved into Erik's backstory---what was his life before the Paris Opera and what made this brilliant, enigmatic, and dangerous man hide from the world in a lair far below the Opera House? Author Susan Kay provides the answers in this highly-sought-after novel.