No. 1 Pulp

If it were distinguished for nothing else, Adventure would stand apart from rival "pulps" because its Assistant Editor used to be Nobel Prizewinner Sinclair Lewis; because it was once entirely illustrated by Rockwell Kent; because one of its most ardent readers was Roosevelt I; because it was the first national magazine to print the works of Pulitzer Prizewinner Thomas Sigismund Stribling. Last week Adventure celebrated its first quarter-century by publishing a special anniversary issue of 176 pages.

In 1910 when Theodore Dreiser was editor of all three Butterick magazines (Delineator, Designer, Woman's Magazine), it was decided to publish a "pulp" for intelligent readers. Adventure started as a monthly, was later issued three times a month, became a fortnightly in 1926. is now again a monthly. Longtime (1911-27) editor was Arthur Sullivant Hoffman, a Phi Beta Kappa from Ohio who boosted circulation to nearly 300,000 (now: 100,000), built up a unique and loyal following which included many a lawyer, statesman, physician, college professor.

Present editor is a Harvardman named Howard V. L. Bloomfield. Under him Adventure maintains the Hoffman tradition: "A Man's Magazine. Clean and Decent. Free from sex. Action. Nothing in the decadent line." Clean and decent contributors to Adventure have included George Jean Nathan, Ellis Parker Butler, Konrad Bercovici, Octavus Roy Cohen. Wilbur Daniel Steele, Albert Payson Terhune. the late Edgar Wallace. It was the first U. S. magazine to sponsor Rafael Sabatini.

Once able to pay 10-c- a word for material, Adventure now gets most of its stuff for about 3-c- a word. "A good writer.'' says Editor Bloomfield, ''is never paid what he is worth."

Notable is the magazine's "Ask Adventure" department, founded 18 years ago with a board of seven experts to answer readers' questions. Today 98 experts in all corners of the world answer such ques-tions as whether a Gila monster's bite is fatal, whether a snake can milk a cow, the status of slavery in Ethiopia, the hazards of existence in the Everglades, the respective fighting merits of lions and gorillas. For replying to sharp-eyed readers the experts get 50-c- per answer. Few members of the Explorers' Club can find technical fault with Adventure's fiction. That they might find fault with its literary content is no worry of onetime Editor Hoffman, who conducts a correspondence course in writing from his home in Carmel, N. Y. Last week to the anniversary issue he contributed a stout defense of his oldtime magazine against literary critics. His theme:

"If action, however violent, evolves from character there is no higher literary expression and the ultimate crystallization of character is likely to lie in physical rather than psychological action."

Year ago Butterick Company sold Adventure to Popular Publications (Dime Detectives, Dime Sports, Horror Stones), one of the better companies which serve 10,000,000 U. S. readers with 100,000,000 words of pulp fiction per year (TIME, Sept. 16). Last week Adventure's Publisher Henry Steegar and Editor Howard Bloomfield had an adventure of their own. Off Massachusetts their 49-ft. schooner-yacht Mariana was picked up by a gale, hurled through a granite breakwater, beached by raging seas close to Plymouth Rock.

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