Hailed as the “No. 1 Pulp” by Time magazine in 1935, Adventure debuted with its November 1910 issue. Edited by explorer and journalist Trumbull White, the pulp was published by the Ridgway Co., a subsidiary of Butterick Publishing Co., known for their sewing patterns.
According to pulp magazine historian and bibliographer, Richard Bleiler:
“Neither the Butterick Publishing Company nor the Ridgway Publishing Company has left any statements as to why Adventure was started, but it seems probable that market research demonstrated that the readers existed for another adult fiction and fact magazine. . . . people who wanted excitement in their stories but who were no longer content with juvenile fiction that tended to be plotless, repetitive, and ineptly written.”
The opening pages of that first issue of Adventure laid out the philosophy of the new magazine:
“The love of adventure will never be lost out of life. It is a fundamental of human nature, just as sentiment is a fundamental, and it is almost as moving. So we reasoned that a magazine edited for this universal hunger of human nature for adventure ought to have a wide appreciation and appeal, and we decided to publish such a magazine and call it Adventure.”
In early 1912, White was succeeded by Arthur Sullivant Hoffman, the editor who would grow the magazine‘s circulation to nearly 300,000 and a thrice monthly publishing schedule. Hoffman would edit Adventure for more than fifteen years.
We hope you’ll join PulpFest 2025 on Thursday, August 7, at 10:15 pm for “Masters of Adventure,” an exploration of the magazine that was the “No. 1 Pulp.” Ed Hulse, Tom Krabacher, and Kurt Shoemaker will discuss the “Masters” who made Adventure into the leading light of the display rack.
As a journalist, Ed Hulse covered the home video and motion picture industries for over 30 years. Since 2002, he has edited and published the award-winning pop culture journal Blood ‘n’ Thunder. The winner of the Lamont Award in 2007, Ed is a writer and prolific public speaker who has lectured on various aspects of vintage American popular culture for museums, libraries, and universities. His books include The Art of Pulp Fiction, The Art of the Classic Western Movie Poster, Distressed Damsels and Masked Marauders, and many other titles, including the forthcoming The Art of Classic Crime and Mystery Movies.
Tom Krabacher is a semi-retired professor at California State University, Sacramento, and a member of the Pulp Era Amateur Press Association. He has previously presented at PulpFest, serving on and moderating panels on Weird Tales, the Cthulhu Mythos, and John Campbell’s classic fantasy magazine, Unknown. He has also explored the Don Everhard stories of Gordon Young — published in Adventure and Short Stories — and published articles on the pulps and their history in Blood ‘n’ Thunder, The Pulpster, and elsewhere.
A retired educator, Kurt Shoemaker lives in Texas where he has explored the life and work of Barry Scobee, a pulp writer whose name graces a mountain in the state. Kurt has written about the author for Purple Prose and Windy City Pulp Stories. A longtime member of the Pulp Era Amateur Press Association, Kurt’s favorite pulp is Adventure.
Last year, Kurt and Tom teamed up for a look at “Operator #5 — America’s Secret Service Ace.”
PulpFest 2025 begins on August 7 and runs through August 10 at the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Pittsburgh – Cranberry in Mars, Pennsylvania. We’ll be celebrating the “Masters of Blood and Thunder,” the “Great Pulp Villains,” Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze, and more at this year’s convention.
The general public is welcome to attend our evening programming events free of charge. To learn more about our programming, please click the 2025 Schedule button at the top of this page.
For those who also want to enjoy our dealers’ room, you can join PulpFest by clicking the register button at the top of this page. And don’t forget to book a room at the DoubleTree. They’re going fast!
Remember, in addition to your membership in PulpFest 2025, you’ll also be a member of Doc Con XXI, ERBFest 2025, and Farmercon XX. That’s four conventions for one price! You can’t beat that deal.
If you’re interested in selling at PulpFest, our dealers’ room is full. However, we are considering adding tables in the pre-function hallway outside of the dealers’ room. These tables will cost $125 each and will be guarded by security overnight. If you are interested, please write to Jack Cullers at jack@pulpfest.com to be added to our waiting list.
Our featured image is excerpted from Percy E. Cowen’s cover for the August 1911 issue of Adventure. A contemporary of George Brehm and Thomas Hart Benton, Cowen carved out a niche for himself, focusing on illustrations for maritime stories, a popular topic at the time.
Our lead image was adapted by William Lampkin from Hubert Rogers’ cover for the May 15, 1935 issue of Adventure, illustrating Gordon Young’s “Damned Dutchman,” a “big novelette of Cap’n Bill Jones.”
Our middle image is the November 1910 number of Adventure, the first issue of the pulp magazine. The cover art is by M. Leone Bracke, a leading magazine and advertising illustrator, most remembered for his World War I posters.
Our final image is Adventure for April 1971 — the last issue of the magazine — with cover art by Shannon Stirnweis. An illustrator in the advertising industry, Stirnweis began freelancing for men’s adventure magazines in the late fifties, before turning to Argosy, Boy’s Life, Field and Stream, Outdoor Life, Popular Mechanics, Reader’s Digest, and others. He also illustrated many paperback covers, working for almost all of the paperback publishers in New York City.
