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Excerpt from inside cover:
"It is 1906, and few in the teeming metropolis of New York City have heard of, let alone seen, the hugely wealthy man who controls so many of their lives. Few, too, would have heard of the extra-ordinary events that took place at the Paris Opera House more than twenty years before - a story as dramatic as any of the operas themselves: a tale of love and murder and passion, the heartbreaking legend of the Phantom of the Opera.
It all began in 1882, when Antoinette Giry, Maîtress du corps de ballet at the Opera, took her small child, Meg, to a carnival. And there, to her horror, she saw a caged, filthy, manacled creature whose tormented eyes shone from a grotesquely deformed face. Overcome by pity, Madame Giry freed him, cured his wounds, and finally let him find a dwelling place seven floors below ground level of the labyrinthine opera house. The creature - Erik - was to become the Phantom of the Opera, his hideous visage masking a brilliant mind. He is a magician, an artist, a musician, and a lover. But when he tries to lure the object of his adoration to his underground domain, it must end in tragedy.
But did it end?
Gaston Leroux's original novel The Phantom of the Opera has been the subject of many adaptations, one of which is, of course, Andrew Lloyd Webber's spectacular stage production. Old friends Frederick Forsyth and Andrew Lloyd Webber discussed how the Phantom's story might continue. As Forsyth said, 'Andrew Lloyd Webber's superb musical left us with an enigma: what ever happened to the Phantom and Christine? The answer is the theme of the novel.' The result is a memorable tale."