Despite those reservations, Lovecraft submitted the piece to Weird Tales. He didn’t exactly hate it, but when an author describes his own work as “full of cheap and rather cumbrous touches” little is left to conjecture.

In the summer of 1926 Lovecraft composed The Call of Cthulhu, but wasn’t happy with it. Lovecraft’s gift for unsettling fiction was a natural fit for the new periodical and he was regularly featured there for the rest of his career, seldom appearing in any other journal. Come 1923 a man named Edwin Baird launched a pulp magazine specializing in horror and fantasy he called it Weird Tales. For the next seven years his works appeared in tiny, obscure journals for which he was typically compensated nothing. So why did a guy named Farnsworth Wright nearly consign it to obscurity? Indeed, Lovecraft’s legacy and the writings, art, films, and games he inspired are collectively known as the Cthulhu Mythos. And the story that has become emblematic of his work is the tale of a rubbery, octopus headed, billion year old monster named Cthulhu.

Massively successful writers like Stephen King and Neil Gaiman have given Lovecraft prominent citation among their inspirations. It’s difficult to overstate the influence of Howard Phillips Lovecraft’s works on horror and fantasy literature. February 1928: Weird Tales magazine publishes “The Call of Cthulhu.” Lovecraft’s most celebrated story narrowly escaped the scrap heap. But maybe he’s still in deathly repose patiently awaiting an opportunity to pounce. Sketched in profile by the author himself, this Cthulhu doesn’t exude planet-destroying rage.

The call to cthulhu