Francis Wayland Thurston is a fictional character created by H. P. Lovecraft, who makes his only appearance in the 1928 short story "The Call of Cthulhu". He is a Bostonian anthropologist, the grandnephew of George Gammell Angell and the sole heir and executor of his estate. While going through the late Professor Angell's papers, he discovered the secret of the Cthulhu Cult, a revelation that probably sealed his doom. Thurston's name appears only in the story's subtitle, which originally appeared in Weird Tales but was dropped from later reprints until the 1981 Arkham House edition.