computer science, math, programming and other stuff
a blog by Christopher Swenson

The Call of Cthulhu: Anyone for a free short story?

I decided to finally sit down and read the short story The Call of Cthulhu, by H.P. Lovecraft the other day. Turns out that it is pretty much in the public domain (this is actually a matter of some debate, but all the evidence I have found on the Internet seems to point pretty squarely that the copyrights expired long ago).

Anyways, I often wish to read works that were published in print, well, in print. I found the complete text on Wikipedia, but it feels kind of lifeless. Something like Lovecraft just feels like it should be in print, you know?

Since I like to think I'm not completely terrible at typesetting, I typeset it. At least, I typeset it enough to where the experience of reading it on paper makes me feel like I'm getting something. It's still somewhat of a minimalist typesetting.

Assuming that the original text is in the public domain, I hereby release the PDF and source of it into the public domain.

The Call of Cthulhu (PDF) The Call of Cthulhu (InDesign Source)

For you people who care about things, the title font is Lucida Blackletter, and the text font is Warnock Pro (one of my favorites) set at 11pt, for that classic feel. It was set in InDesign CS3 for standard letter paper (14 pages at 8.5 × 11"). It's double-column for easier reading. Nothing fancy.

Maybe there will be more to come in the future?