Upon realizing that the majority of H.P. Lovecraft's work is in the public domain, I decided to finally get into the Cthulhu Mythos. So far I've read 'The Call of Cthulhu" and 'The Dunwich Horror", but would like to know where to go from there. Any suggestions?

I guess "The Shadow Over Innsmouth" is one that sets the Mythos rather well, so you could go there next. Personally I very much like "The Color Out of Space" and "At the Mountains of Madness".

If you have a Barnes and Noble nearby, the "big book of Cthulhu" is actually really cheap (I think it's like $10-15) and it has pretty much every story I've ever heard of from the mythos.

Howard Philips Lovecraft is already in the PD for almost five years. ;-)

I never read Lovecraft, but the Shadows of Innsmouth are still very influential, so you might want to read that.

Is there a reading order to the mythos, or am I free to skip around?

Personally, I've been reading it in the order the book has it, so I'm not really sure. :/

OOOOOOOH, hello there, now we are on a subject near and dear to my heart. I am a huge fan of Lovecraft and Lovecraftian style horror. I recommend (on top of what's been mentioned):

At the Mountains of Madness
The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath (one of my favourites)
Herbert West: Reanimator (one of my favourites)
The Alchemist
The Outlander (one of my favourites)
The Colour Out of Space
The Whisperer in Darkness (one of my favourites)
The Shadow Out of Time (one of my favourites)
Nyarlathotep
The Silver Key (not as good as Dream-Quest but still fantastic)
Through the Gates of the Silver Key (same as above)
Pickman's Model
The Other Gods
The Rats in the Walls

All of his stories (for the most part) are very very good, but the ones I listed I like in particular. Especially, the ones I marked as favourites, out of those I recommend (depending on your mood) The Shadow Out of Time, Dream-Quest, or Reanimator. Subsequently, those are Sci-Fi, Fantasy and Horror, to give you some variety in genres.

At the Mountains of Madness is amazing..

I'm happy I gave you the chance to talk about something you're passionate about. I'll probably start with "At the Mountains of Madness" since everyone is mentioning it, then read your favorites.

*Quick note: Dream Quest is a novella, so I'd recommend reading it after you're already acclimated to Lovecraft's style (some of the prose is veeery purple).

To augment your Lovecraft reading experience I would highly recommend the HP Lovecraft Literary podcast. The two men behind the show have done a superb job covering the stories, do a fair amount of research into each one, have great readers, and are pretty funny to boot. As a bonus they have already covered essentially the entirety of HPL works, so you merely need to select the episode for the story you want and download. It's free expect for the very newest episodes, which aren't HPL anyway, just other horror stories Lovecraft acknowledged in one of his essays.

They also offer free full readings of some of HPL's shorter stories, pretty neat after you have read the text and want to listen to well produced production. The link is right here :

www.hppodcraft.com

His archaic style did take a while to get used to, but now I really like it. It somehow manages to add to the horror, and I feel the stories would be very different if they had a more modern writing style.

I love works of such imagination, so Lovecraft is generally top of my list. Ah, good choice, At the Mountains of Madness IS a fantastic story. It's part of the reason I love the 1982 The Thing. On a side note, I got John Carpenter to sign my copy on blu-ray! ^_^. Mountains is one of my favs, but I limited what I put as favourite otherwise I'd end up fantarding myself silly.

@Gazoinks: Oh damn, you're right. I tend to I tend to forget that having a grasp of Lovecraft's other works helps better understanding and appreciating Dream-Quest, but I just love the story so much.

I really need to get around to finishing Dream-Quest. I went on a Lovecraft kick a while ago and started reading it, but then I got distracted and forgot. >.>

I recommend it, that and Shadow Out of Time are probably my top two favourites. Great race of Yith always stand out as absolutely awesome to me. Also remember to read the two Silver Key stories as they with Dream-Quest form a trilogy.