Book excerpt: For the first time, Far Below and Other Weird Stories contain all of Robert Barbour Johnson's weird fiction in one book, plus three essays selected by S. T. Joshi. His stories were admired by H. P. Lovecraft, and, "Far Below" was voted in 1953 by readers as the best story ever published in Weird Tales magazine. His stories are distinctive, and frequently use common motifs such as inanimate objects coming to life, ancestral curses, vampires, werewolves, witches, and so on. He always manages to infuse new life into these venerable themes by innovative treatment, and writes with an intense Poe like style which makes his weird fiction entertaining to read.