A gullible boxer is tricked into a kidnapping plot in this pulp tale by Robert E. Howard. The story is forgettable but worth reading if you’ve never encountered anything by REH outside of the sword & sorcery genre.

This is an important work: the first Gothic novel. But note H.P. Lovecraft's apt description of THE CASTLE OF OTRANTO: "tedious, artificial, and melodramatic."

It was good to read something by Bram Stoker besides DRACULA. About half of the stories in this collection are worth reading: "Dracula's Guest," "The Judge's House," "The Squaw," and "The Secret of the Growing Gold." Beware, though: The stories I mentioned are still clumsy. The rest are utterly forgettable.