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This short story originally appeared in Weird Tales in 1928. It has been anthologized many times, including the anthology The Dark Descent, edited by David G. Hartwell, and has also been included in a myriad of collections, including the collections The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories and The Dunwich Horror and Others.

It was the basis for the 2005 featurette The Call of Cthulhu.

The February 1928 issue of Weird Tales containing "The Call of Cthulhu" is available free on Internet Archives.

Welcome to Derry, Maine. It's a small city, a place as hauntingly familiar as your own hometown. Only in Derry the haunting is real.

They were seven teenagers when they first stumbled upon the horror. Now they are grown-up men and women who have gone out into the big world to gain success and happiness. But the promise they made twenty-eight years ago calls them reunite in the same place where, as teenagers, they battled an evil creature that preyed on the city's children. Now, children are being murdered again and their repressed memories of that terrifying summer return as they prepare to once again battle the monster lurking in Derry's sewers.

With the 1984 publication of Books of Blood, Clive Barker became an overnight literary sensation. He was hailed by Stephen King as "the future of horror," and won both the British and World Fantasy Awards. Now, with his numerous bestsellers, graphic novels, and hit movies like the Hellraiser films, Clive Barker has become an industry unto himself. But it all started here, with this tour de force collection that rivals the dark masterpieces of Edgar Allan Poe. Read him. And rediscover the true meaning of fear.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction (Books of Blood) - (1984) - essay by Ramsey Campbell
• Books of Blood, Volume I - [Books of Blood - 1] - (1984) - collection
• The Book of Blood - (1984) - short story
• The Midnight Meat Train - (1984) - novelette
• The Yattering and Jack - (1984) - novelette
• Pig Blood Blues - (1984) - novelette
• Sex, Death and Starshine - (1984) - novelette
• In the Hills, the Cities - (1984) - novelette
• Books of Blood, Volume II - [Books of Blood - 2] - (1984) - collection
• Dread - (1984) - novelette
• Hell's Event - (1984) - novelette
• Jacqueline Ess: Her Will and Testament - (1984) - novelette
• The Skins of the Fathers - (1984) - novelette
• New Murders in the Rue Morgue - (1984) - novelette
• Books of Blood, Volume III - [Books of Blood - 3] - (1984) - collection
• Son of Celluloid - (1984) - novelette
• Rawhead Rex - (1984) - novelette
• Confession of a (Pornographer's) Shroud - (1984) - novelette
• Scape-Goats - (1984) - novelette
• Human Remains - (1984) - novelette

One of the most durable myths in Western culture, the story of Faust tells of a learned German doctor who sells his soul to the devil in exchange for knowledge and power. Early enactments of Faust's damnation were often the raffish fare of clowns and low comedians. But the young Elizabethan playwright Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593) recognized in the story of Faust's temptation and fall the elements of tragedy.

In his epic treatment of the Faust legend, Marlowe retains much of the rich phantasmagoria of its origins. There are florid visions of an enraged Lucifer, dueling angels, the Seven Deadly Sins, Faustus tormenting the Pope, and his summoning of the spirit of Alexander the Great. But the playwright created equally powerful scenes that invest the work with tragic dignity, among them the doomed man's calling upon Christ to save him and his ultimate rejection of salvation for the embrace of Helen of Troy.

With immense poetic skill, and psychological insight that foreshadowed the later work of Shakespeare and the Jacobean playwrights, Marlowe created in Dr. Faustus one of the first true tragedies in English. Vividly dramatic, rich in poetic grandeur, this classic play remains a robust and lively exemplar of the glories of Elizabethan drama.

Much to the chagrin of his girlfriend, Gia, Repairman Jack doesn't deal with appliances. He fixes situations - situations that too often land him in deadly danger. His latest fix is finding a stolen necklace which, unknown to him, is more than a simple piece of jewelry.

Some might say it's cursed, others might call it blessed. The quest leads Jack to a rusty freighter on Manhattan's West Side docks. What he finds in its hold threatens his sanity and the city around him. But worst of all, it threatens Gia's daughter Vicky, the last surviving member of a bloodline marked for extinction.

Note from the author:

Some of you who read pre-1998 editions of The Tomb have questioned (and rightfully so) how Legacies, so obviously a contemporary novel, could take place only months after The Tomb, which was definitely set in the mid 1980s. The answer is simple: I cheated. I changed The Tomb for the new 1998 edition.

You see, I never planned to bring Jack back. But when I did, I realized I'd either have to set his new stories in the eighties, or go back and change The Tomb. I chose the latter and removed all references that would moor The Tomb in a specific era. The 1998 edition is now what we authors like to call "the preferred text."

All the new Repairman Jack novels loop out from The Tomb and will weave their way back toward Nightworld. I don't know how many we'll end up with. When they stop being fun to write or when I notice I'm starting to repeat myself, I'll quit and move on to something else.

In the summer of 1960 in Elm Haven, Illinois, a sinister being is stalking the town's children, and when a long-silent bell peals in the middle of the night, the townfolk know it marks the end of innocence.

Chance had ruled Marty Strauss' life for as long as he could remember. Now at last luck was turning his way. Parolled from prison, he becomes bodyguard to Joseph Whitehead, one of the richest men in Europe. But Whitehead has also played with chance - an ancient game which gave him vast power and wealth, in exchange for his immortal soul. Now the forces he played against are back to claim what's theirs. Terryifying forces, with the power to raise the dead; and Marty is trapped between his human masters and Hell itself, with just one last, desperate game left to play.

In Castle Rock, Maine, Leland Gaunt is a stranger. He runs a shop called Needful Things, where there's something for everyone-and a price for everyone, too. For Gaunt, the pleasure of doing business lies in seeing how much people will pay for their most secret desires. When two townspeople oppose him, it becomes an epic clash of good vs. evil.

Meryam and Adam take risks for a living. But neither is prepared for what lies in the legendary heights of Mount Ararat, Turkey.

First to reach a massive cave revealed by an avalanche, they discover the hole in the mountain's heart is really an ancient ship, buried in time. A relic that some fervently believe is Noah's Ark.

Deep in its recesses stands a coffin inscribed with mysterious symbols that no one in their team of scholars, archaeologists and filmmakers can identify. Inside is a twisted, horned cadaver. Outside a storm threatens to break.

As terror begins to infiltrate their every thought, is it the raging blizzard that chases them down the mountain - or something far worse?