The Leroux novel gives few details about Erik's past, although there is no shortage of hints and implications throughout the book. Erik himself laments the fact that his mother was horrified by his appearance and never allowed his father to see him. It is also revealed that "Erik" was not, in fact, his birth name, but given or found "by accident", as Erik himself tells in the novel.
Most of Erik's history is revealed by a mysterious figure, known through most of the novel as "the Persian" or "Daroga", who had been a local police chief in Persia and who followed Erik to Paris; some of the rest is discussed in the novel's Epilogue. Erik was born in a town outside of Rouen, France. He was born hideously deformed, and was a "subject of horror and terror" for his entire life. He ran away as a boy and fell in with a band of gypsies, making his living as an attraction in freak shows, in which he was known as "le mort vivant (the living death)." During his time with the tribe, Erik became a great illusionist, magician and ventriloquist. His reputation for these skills and for his beautiful singing voice spread quickly, and one day a fur trader mentioned him to the Shah of Persia. The Shah ordered the Persian to fetch Erik and bring him to the palace.
The Shah-in-Shah commissioned Erik, who proved himself a gifted architect, with the task of constructing an elaborate palace. The edifice was designed with so many trap doors and secret rooms that not even the slightest whisper could be considered private. The architecture was arranged for the purpose of carrying sound to a myriad of hidden locations, so that one never knew who might be listening in. At some point under the Shah's employment, Erik was also a royal assassin, using a unique noose referred to as the Punjab Lasso.
The Persian dwells on the vague horrors that existed at Mazenderan rather than going in depth into the actual circumstances involved. The Shah pleased with Erik's work is determined that no one else should have such a palace as his and orders Erik to be blinded. Thinking that Erik could still make another palace even without his eye sight the Shah ordered Erik's execution. It was only by the intervention of the daroga (the Persian) that Erik was able to escape.
Erik then went to Constantinople and was employed by its ruler, helping build certain edifices in the Yildiz-Kiosk, among other things. But he had to leave the city for the same reason he left Mazenderan: he knew too much.
By this time Erik was tired of palace life and wanted to "live like everybody else." For a time he worked as a contractor, building "ordinary houses with ordinary bricks". He eventually bid on a contract to help with the construction of the Palais Garnier, commonly known as the Paris Opera House.
During the construction he was able to make a sort of playground for himself within the Opera House, creating trapdoors and secret passageways throughout every inch of the theatre. He even built himself a house in the cellars of the Opera where he lived, hidden from man's cruelty. We also know that Erik was composing an opera entitled "Don Juan Triumphant." In one chapter after he takes Christine to his lair, she asks him to play for her a piece from his Don Juan. He refuses and says, "I will play you Mozart, if you like, which will only make you weep; but my Don Juan, Christine, burns." He originally planned to go to his bed and "never wake up" upon its completion but by the final chapters of the novel, Erik had expressed his wish to marry Christine after his opera had been completed.
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