the Palais Garnier Opera House. The rest of the book loosely follows the original novel The Phantom of the Opera, though the relationship between Christine and Erik is explored in greater detail and with greater compassion than the original novel. Characters Erik, the main character, a hideously deformed young man Madeleine, Erik's spoiled and vain mother Javert, master of a Romani tribe who exhibits Erik as a circus freak Giovanni, an elderly Italian master stonemason, who discovers Erik on one of his sites one morning, and takes him on as an apprentice Luciana, Giovanni's youngest daughter Nadir Khan, known in Leroux's book only as "The Persian", is Erik's only friend Reza, Nadir's young son, who is dying from Tay–Sachs disease The Persian Shah is the ruler of Persia (by the book's chronology probably Naser al-Din Shah Qajar) The khanum, referred to as the Sultana or "the little sultana" in Leroux's book. She develops a great lust for Erik. (Historically the Mahd-i Ulya at this time was Malek Jahan Khanom.) Christine Daaé, the beautiful young Swedish chorus girl whom Erik meets at the Paris Opera Charles, the son of Christine and Erik, born around 1881 Raoul, Vicomte de Chagny, Christine's childhood friend and later her husband La Carlotta, the bratty Spanish diva of the Opera Garnier Madame Giry, Erik's loyal box-keeper and mother of Meg Giry Meg Giry, a ballet dancer and the daughter of Madame Giry Debienne and Poligny, the old managers of the Opera Garnier Moncharmin and Richard, the new managers of the Opera House, though they know little about opera itself Sasha, Erik's boyhood pet dog, a golden spaniel who was murdered by a mob Ayesha, a Siamese cat Erik adopted on the streets of Paris during the 1871 Commune Release details For several years, Phantom was out of print, and was only available on the secondary market. After the film version of Phantom Of The Opera was released in 2004, interest in the fandom—and prices for the book—rose dramatically. The novel was reprinted in October 2005 by Llumina Press. In Sweden the novel was only printed once, which makes it rather rare. In the Swedish translation, by Lena Torndahl, the whole sequence involving Christine finding a gigantic spider on her pillow and begs Erik to kill it (Whom during the whole novel compared himself with a spider) has been cut. Hardcover: Delacorte Press, 1991, Llumina Stars, 2005,