Talk:The Call of Cthulhu

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Racism?[edit]

Shouldn't there be some mention of the problematic content and language? I don't think it is necessarily just a case of Lovecraft simply being a product of his time... 184.56.35.130 (talk) 01:26, 17 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Movie?[edit]

From the article:

The H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society is producing a film adaptation of the story, to be released in Spring 2005.

Is this correct? On the IMDb I see a video game that is coming out in 2005, but no movie. Should this be changed or is their really a movie coming out on this? — Frecklefoot | Talk 16:36, Jan 24, 2005 (UTC)\

It is indeed coming out - it's not a studio or big budget production, but a step above amateur. See http://www.cthulhulives.org/CoC/trailer.html -khaosworks 17:02, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

It has now been released on DVD, and viewed on my computer... Miraculouschaos 16:27, 28 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Lovecraft stories[edit]

I've reverted the edit by Niz. The Call of Cthulhu is the only Cthulhu story by Lovecraft himself. If you dispute this, list the other stories based on the Cthulhu Mythos that Lovecraft wrote. Lovecraft wrote many storires, but only one dealing with the Cthulhu mythos. — Frecklefoot | Talk 20:13, Jun 9, 2005 (UTC)

huh? what about all those stories mentioning the Old Ones, yog-sothoth, shub-niggurath etc? chtulhu mythos is not just "cthulhu", its the whole pantheon of gods, plus the necronomicon, abdul al-hazred etc.... its all cthulhu. e.g. these stories are all cthulhy mythos

Dagon

Nyarlathotep

The Nameless City

Herbert West: Reanimator

Azathoth

The Hound

The Lurking Fear

The Rats in the Walls

The Case of Charles Dexter Ward

The Colour Out of Space

History of the Necronomicon

The Whisperer in Darkness

At the Mountains of Madness

The Shadow Over Innsmouth

The Dreams in the Witch House

The Horror in the Museum

Out of the Aeons

The Thing on the Doorstep

The Shadow Out of Time

The Haunter of the Dark

--Niz

Okay, then, you've justified your edit. Go ahead and restore it if you already haven't. :-) — Frecklefoot | Talk 04:14, Jun 13, 2005 (UTC)

Removed from article[edit]

I removed the following from the article:

This story was instrumental in launching the so-called Cthulhu mythos, stories and novels based on the idea of the other-worldly creatures who wish to reinhabit Earth.

I believe this to be rather dubious and misleading. I doubt one could make the case that the "The Call of Cthulhu" "launched" the Cthulhu mythos. Rather, the story simply influenced August Derleth to give the mythos its name. In fact, Lovecraft was already encouraging other writers to use the mythos in their own stories (and this was before it acquired its controversial moniker), so "The Call of Cthulhu" really is inconsequential to this issue.
-,-~^R'lyehRising~-,- 06:36, 6 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Clarification. The problem I have with this is the word "launch" — I'm not quite sure what the original contributor intended, or even if the contributor fully understood the subtleties of what they were saying. Since Lovecraft himself believed that all his stories were — according to S. T. Joshi — "linked philosophically" (Joshi, "The Cthulhu Mythos"), I doubt that HPL felt he was "launching" anything new. The "Cthulhu Mythos" itself came only after Lovecraft's death and was first conceived of and advocated by August Derleth — who did, however, cite "The Call of Cthulhu" as the story in which "the myth-pattern first became apparent" (Derleth, "H.P. Lovecraft—Outsider").
,-~^R'lyehRising~-, 04:32, 10 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Copyright Status?[edit]

I would like to see some verification of the copyright status of this work. Wikisource has the etext online here: http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Call_of_Cthulhu ... However, I'm not convinced that it is in the Public Domain. Anyone have more info on this? thistlechick 01:23, 22 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

There's no evidence that either Arkham House or any other Lovecraft heir renewed any copyrights, as was required under the old copyright laws, so if they did own the rights to any Lovecraft stories, they don't now.

S. T. Joshi's theory, apparently, is that Weird Tales owned the rights to a few Lovecraft stories, and those rights were renewed, so six Lovecraft stories may be still copyrighted.

Everything published before 1923 is in the public domain in the U.S.

Here's a fairly useful discussion:[1]

And this is maybe more useful: [2]

Nareek 02:04, 22 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Reading of the book[edit]

I have started to create a video reading the book and this article.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5nd07QaCnEc Mdupont (talk) 10:13, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Francis Wayland Thurston: from Boston or New York?[edit]

The article currently reads "The story is presented as a manuscript 'found among the papers of the late Francis Wayland Thurston, of New York'." The editions on google books that I can see all have "... the late Francis Wayland Thurston, of Boston". Where did New York come from? Echalon (talk) 16:53, 13 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

In my printed version of the book ^[1] Thurston states "... and for that pupose moved his entire set of files and boxes to my quarters in Boston", certainly supporting the notion, that he lives in Boston.

MBHertz (talk) 10:01, 5 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

References

^ ISBN 0-586-20344-3

Spelling of Eskimos/Esquimaux in quote[edit]

In the plot summary is a curious spelling of the word Eskimos/Esquimaux: "a singular tribe or cult of degenerate Esquimaux whose religion, a curious form of devil-worship…" (my italics). In my printed version of the short story ^[1] and in the etext at WikiSource^[2] the quote is "a singular tribe or cult of degenerate Eskimos whose religion, a curious form of devil-worship…" (again my italics). Does anybody know which source the Esquimaux-spelling comes from? Has it been changed in later editions of the short story? And shouldn't the quote be corrected to a verifyable source? MBHertz (talk) 10:28, 5 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

References

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Call of Cthulhu Video Game[edit]

Self-explanatory, not included in Lovecraftian Horror, HP Lovecraft, nor Call of Cthulhu pages, nor does it have it's own page. Pretty good game, it's said in this article that video games are an intrinsically difficult medium to portray cosmic horror into, however I think that this game, if played first hand, and concluded to acte of it's endings, conveys the experience rather well... Sceak (talk) 17:39, 13 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

[1] ISBN 0-586-20344-3

[2] ISBN 0-586-20344-3

[3] ttp://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Call_of_Cthulhu

[1]

[1]

[2]