Gaston Louis Alfred Leroux is best known for writing "The Phantom of the Opera," which was made into several stage and screen productions. He studied law in Paris and managed to squander away millions of francs that he inherited, living wildly and nearly going bankrupt, which then forced him to find work as a reporter, covering criminal cases. One of the notorious ones he covered involved an opera house in Paris that had a basement cell used at one time to hold prisoners. It was no doubt partly an inspiration for his Phantom of the Opera novel. Gaston left journalism in 1907 at the age of 39, and began his writing career on a full-time basis, having written two other works in 1902 and 1903. The current title was published in late 1907 and early 1908 and led to a long and successful career that ended more than fifteen years later when he died in France on the same day U.S. taxes are due: April 15th, 1927. Leroux's many contributions to French detective fiction is considered on a level equal to that of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's and Edgar Allan Poe's in both the United Kingdom and the United States. The "Mystery of the Yellow Room" is the first one of a series of stories featuring Gaston's young criminal reporter Joseph Rouletabille, obviously fashioned after Gaston himself. He went on to write seven more stories with the same crime-solving protagonist.