Arthur S. Hoffman - Profile of Fritz Duquesne, adventurer

Fritz Duquesne was an adventurer who wrote some stories for Adventure magazine.

• Sekokoeni’s Raid (ar) Dec 1910
• The Man-Eaters of M’wembi (ar) Jan 1911
• When the Rain Was Red (ss) Sep 1911
• The Fighting Dwarfs of the Congo (ar) Jun 1912
• A Fire-Hunt at Kivu (ar) Dec 1913

Adventurer and Avenger - article about Fritz Duquesne by Arthur S. Hoffman in Adventure magazine, April 1938

He's the subject of the only article written by Arthur S. Hoffman for Adventure magazine in April 1938. It's an interesting profile; Hoffman was a patriot, and Duquesne was so against the British that he actively supported Germany in both World Wars. In spite of being on opposite sides, it seems to me that Hoffman respected Duquesne, even as he didn't agree with him.

The facts may be questioned, the impression from the article is of a man forged hard by tragedy to become an avenger with a tragic life. You can read it here.

Behind the scenes - how the editorial office worked at Adventure magazine

[This article from Arthur S. Hoffman originally appeared in the February 1, 1927 issue of Adventure magazine. I thought it was an interesting behind the scenes look at how the magazine worked.

If you worked on a magazine, let us know what you saw.]

LOOKING ABOUT

 

IT MAY be that some of you think our asking so often for your suggestions on the making and shaping of our magazine is only an empty performance. Here is exactly what is done in the office:

First, there are your letters that come in because of no specific request made to you but merely as a result of the general reader interest in our magazine, of the friendly, active, we-are-part-of-Adventure feeling that has grown up through the years. Those letters are read word for word. One editor is especially assigned to the duty of keeping an exact card-index record of every single comment on any of our writers or any of their stories, even a mention of such, favorable or unfavorable. Every six months he makes out a carefully tabulated, detailed report, ranking our whole list of authors on the basis of our readers’ ‘Votes.” Every member of the staff pores over that report.

Allowance must be made for the number of times an author appears during the six months’ period covered, for serials or novelettes versus shorts, and so on. But the ranking of authors from that summary of readers’ votes becomes at once a guide in the buying of manuscripts during the next six months. Also it brings about a new assessment of our writers as to their relative values to this particular magazine and consequently as to the rate of payment each should have.

General comments on other phases and features of our magazine are not card-indexed. The multiplicity and variety of points commented upon, from typographical details to the general policy of the magazine, make this impracticable. But it is the duty of the editor in charge to note down any pronounced amount of comment on any one point and, if comment continues heavy, to begin tabulating “votes” on that point, meanwhile of course calling the attention of the rest of us to the point on trial.

Comments on any particular department—"Camp-Fire,” “Ask Adventure,’’ "Information services", “Travel,” “Straight Goods,” “Books,” “Old Songs,” “Lost Trails,” “Trail Ahead,” “Looking About” —are turned over to the editor in charge of that department, to be read, summarized, filed or used in his department.

Any reader’s letter claiming one of our authors has been inaccurate or incorrect in the use of any of the fact material in his fiction, or any of ourselves or our service editors in anything printed in the magazine, gets particular attention. If a final verdict on the claim, for or against, can not be authoritatively given in the office, the letter is mailed or turned over to the author or editor involved and it’s up to him either to confess error or to convince the reader the criticism was not soundly taken.

The results in this case are apparent. Adventure prides itself on an earned reputation for accuracy and reliability in the local color, setting and atmosphere of its stories, in all fact material, historical or otherwise, used in its fiction. It wasn’t the editors who earned that reputation for our magazine. It was the readers who earned it. And they did it by the method above. No set of editors in the world could be final authority on all the subjects and places covered, but, whatever the subject, there are always at least a few among our readers who are very competent authorities. Writers and editors have learned that it is not healthy to come before Adventure's audience with fact material that isn’t bullet-proof. None of us is infallible, but when we slip we acknowledge it frankly in type so that there can be no uncorrected misinformation laid before our readers.

Another result is interesting topics, investigations and discussions for Camp-Fire. Will older readers ever forget the argument royal that arose among Camp-Fire over Talbot Mundy’s interpretation of the character of Julius Caesar in the Tros stories? Had to stop it finally because it wasn’t leaving space for much else, but I think most of us learned more about Julius Caesar than we had ever known before. We’re still getting occasional requests to have the contributions to that argument issued in book form. Well, maybe we can some day.

Of such results as the above you will be finding plenty of proof in the magazine as you go along, but another result is not so obvious. Nearly all the comments and criticisms are in friendly spirit and the replies are in kind. Therefore in hundreds and hundreds of cases real personal friendships have grown up between readers and writers, or among readers, and the real fellowship of Camp-Fire is very appreciably promoted.

All the foregoing applies to general letters from readers. Your letters not read? All of them are read. At the top of some will be penciled three or four names— authors or editors—which means that the owner of each name must see that letter.

As to opinions on specific points, specifically asked for. Well, take the request for readers’ suggestions and advice on the new form of our magazine.

The response from readers in this case has been splendid. Our summary of your suggestions has now been put into final and complete form. Not only has every one of the active editorial staff studied it thoroughly but carbon copies have been passed on to each of the following for his equally careful study—the publisher, the assistant publisher, the heads of the Circulation and the Promotion Departments.

We’re going to give you an exact copy of that report in full. With one exception. Some of the information you have given us is much too valuable and important to broadcast for the benefit of other publishers. Accordingly in at least one place we’re going to scramble the report a little, but any such places, and the nature of the scrambling, will be indicated for your benefit. Other publishers of course get an occasional formal referendum from readers, get questions for specific answer. No other magazine gets from its readers anything like such a response of voluntary, independent opinions and suggestions as Adventure’s readers give to it. We do not see why we should hand over to other magazines all of the valuable information thus received, information meant for us, not for them.

I think we can give you the report in “Camp-Fire” of the issue following this one. If not, as soon as it can be done.

And to the very sincere thanks of my own department I am to add those of all the other departments cooperating in making Adventure a magazine that meets the desires of the majority of its readers as closely as is humanly possible to do.

Oh yes, we really want your suggestions and criticisms! And we really read and consider them when we get them. If you don’t like this or that in the magazine, tell us so. We can’t please everybody on every point, but we can please the majority and so far as it’s at all possible we naturally want to do just that.

Lots of people never write to any magazine about anything. But this is different. Adventure isn’t just a magazine. It’s Camp-Fire, readers, writers and editors working together to make for themselves the best magazine and clearing-house of ideas and information that they can, and to have as good and friendly a time as possible while they’re doing it. Do your part. Don’t just take from the rest of us without contributing your share in return. There’s always a bit of time now and then when a letter or post-card and a few marks with pen, pencil or typewriter can send in a criticism or suggestion that may bear good fruit for all who gather around the Fire. You’re not writing to a magazine—you’re writing to Adventure.—a. s. h.

Adventure's failed experiment in 1927

Earlier on this blog, we've talked about the change in Adventure magazine that took place in 1927 when new owners took over the magazine - the magazine changed from this look:



to this:


The contents of the magazine also changed, a books column was added, there was discussion and reviews of the best outdoor equipment etc. The fiction was kept intact, though.

We've discussed earlier whether this was the cause for Arthur Hoffman's departure from the magazine. Walker Martin (see the comments in the link above) feels that Hoffman was supportive of the move, but left because it failed to improve the business. I felt the new ownership was taking it in a direction that Hoffman didn't want, and that was part of the reason that Hoffman left.

Here's something that I found recently that might help - correspondence between Joseph Cox, the editor who succeeded Hoffman and Horace Kephart, an outdoors expert. Cox wanted Kephart to become a part of the Ask Adventure group of experts who answered readers' queries.

While doing so, he mentions that the new ownership wanted to make Adventure into the "trade journal of all the outdoors". That would probably have meant less fiction and more non-fiction. That change in direction, combined with the drop in readership, was (in my opinion), the reason for Hoffman's departure.

As we know, the magazine's circulation didn't improve and Adventure was back in pulp format in 1927. Joseph Cox left as editor in 1928 and the magazine went downhill until Harold Bloomfield took over as editor in 1934.

Arthur S. Hoffman's departure from Adventure magazine - an update

A long time ago, when I published my first article on Arthur S. Hoffman, I mentioned that he probably left because the management changes to the editorial direction of Adventure magazine were not to his liking. Walker Martin disagreed with me on this, saying Hoffman wanted to make Adventure a higher quality magazine, and his decision to depart was not due to the management change. At the time, I thought we wouldn't resolve this until we found any other evidence. Well, I've found new evidence and here it is (from one of the magazines I acquired at the Windy City Pulp convention 2014).

From the Camp-Fire, 1 February 1935:

A FINE bright blaze crackles this time in the Camp-Fire. Thousands of comrades who have been in the circle year in and year out will feel the warm and cheerful glow on their faces. We have a message from one of the few great editors—the man who conducted our magazine with so much ability and honest enthusiasm that readers gave him a truly remarkable response of loyalty and friendliness. No large group of readers is so loyal as the older guard of Adventure. They are an unusual army of well-read and friendly men, and at their head still marches the talented comrade who sends us this greeting:

Carmel, N.Y.

 

Dear Comrades of the Camp-Fire:—

Is there room around the Fire for one of its old-timers? No adventures to tell about, but as I was the fellow who gathered the first wood and struck the first spark for this Camp-Fire of ours, maybe there's still a place for me to sit and listen to the others after I've given an account of myself.

I admit it: I've not been coming to the meetings. To make a long story short, when I resigned as editor of our magazine, I was more glad than sorry to do so. Partly because I was going to a better paying job but chiefly because it had become more and more plain to me that the new ownership (at that time) was set upon making changes in the magazine that seemed to me to doom it to go downhill. They even spoke of abolishing Camp-Fire and Ask Adventure as well as all other departments. After working hard for seventeen years to build up the magazine I naturally didn't want to stay and see it crumble away. Still less did I want to be held responsible by the readers for things I did not approve and could not prevent.

Well, our magazine did what I had foreseen—went downhill. Many a one of you has written me bemoaning that fact. A number of editors tried their hands; I do not think any editor could have made a success of the program and under the limitations laid down from above. Personally, I stopped reading the magazine. Camp-Fire at times seemed a mere travesty of what it had once been; I missed the old spirit among you, despite the faithful who did their best to keep things as they had been.

One day last summer, on one of my infrequent trips from the country, I stopped in to see Joe Cox of our old staff, having learned he'd returned to the magazine after its purchase by Popular Publications. I met the present editor and we went to lunch. We talked.

Then we talked more frankly, and for a long time. About nothing except the magazine and Camp-Fire.

On another visit we talked again, and this time one of the publishers sat in on our informal session.

And so I've come back to Camp-Fire.

No, I have no connection with the magazine in any way except as a reader.

I've come back merely as one of the Camp-Fire gang. Because, for the first time since some seven years ago, our magazine has an ownership and an editor who really understand it as we understand it and whose aim is to make it all that we used to find it. As I know from experience, it takes time to build up what we had, for what we had was not just printed words on pages but a spirit of comradeship and understanding that grew up among us. But now we're not only on our way, but picking up speed.

Some of you never deserted the Fire, so it could not die out entirely. Now we have an editor who is really one of us and, back of him, a house that also understands. It looks to me as if the good old times were coming back again.

Apparently it looks the same way to the rest of you, for the circulation has begun to go up steadily. Even during the summer months, dull ones for magazines, it was going up.

And very glad I am to be "home once more. I've been in touch with quite a few of you, both readers and members of our writers' brigade, and hearing occasionally from others, but it's good to be able to shake hands with all my old friends again and to meet the new comrades. Most of us have traveled a long and pleasant road together; there are many memories and old ties and there is good comradeship among us. Our Camp-Fire is now twenty-two years old.

Here's to its next, and better, twenty-two years.

—ARTHUR S. HOFFMAN

Profile of Arthur S. Hoffman, Adventure magazine editor, from 1920

We now recognize Arthur S. Hoffman’s work in making Adventure one of the foremost pulp magazines. What did contemporaries think of him? To find out, read this article that originally appeared in Advertising and Selling magazine, April 3, 1920.

 

Arthur S. Hoffman's birthday today - and a new fact about him

[From a letter to the Putnam County Courier, here’s an interesting fact about Arthur S. Hoffman on his birthday.]

Harold Lamb and Historical Romance - article by Arthur S. Hoffman

Arthur S. Hoffman wrote this article about Harold Lamb, the pioneering author of eastern historical adventure fiction, for "The Bookman", March 1930. This was after Lamb had become famous for his popular histories - Genghis Khan, Tamerlane and The Crusades.

In it, he talks about how Harold Lamb got interested in Asian history and started writing historical adventure fiction set outside Europe and America, his historical expertise and depth of original research on the topics. Link after the jump.

Arthur S. Hoffman - The Editor’s Attitude Toward the Young Author

The Editor’s Attitude Toward the Young Author

Arthur S. Hoffman

I fear the answers to your two questions, if adequate, would entail the writing of a small volume. Generalization is rather futile unless its statements be taken as subject to hundreds of modifying influences.

In the first place, the attitude of magazine editors is not one attitude but almost as many as there are editors and magazines. (The same editor serving on three magazines will have a different attitude on each of them, since he must greatly adapt his own to that of the magazine. The same magazine under three successive editors will vary in attitude, generally in smaller degree, as each new editor takes hold.) Perhaps the general answers to your two questions reduce to the following fundamentals :—

Attitude of magazine editors toward Mss. of unknown authors? The most comprehensive answer is that all authors were once unknown and could have become known only through editorial recognition of unknown authors.

In a general way editors (or perhaps more exactly, magazines) divide into two general camps. One puts more trust in the circulation-getting value of “big names,” of authors already well known, each bringing to the magazine his own particular following of readers. Also the mere display of a list of “big names” brings a kind of general prestige and standing

The other camp ignores “big names,” generally because they cost too much, sometimes through free intention. This camp weighs stories solely on their merits.

Both camps, of course, weigh stories not by their intrinsic merit alone but also by their adaptation to the character and needs of the magazine in question

Al of which is well enough as a generalization, but the generalization is subject to numerous things. As a single example, the second camp often publishes “Big names”; “seconds” or “thirds,” rejected by the usual buyers of “big names;” firsts unadapted to particular character or temporary needs of those other magazines; firsts, sent to a magazine of Camp No. 2 through some choice of the author; firsts, seconds or thirds deliberately bought by Camp No. 2 as result of decision to compromise between the two camps: first, seconds or thirds bought by Camp No. 2 before an author got his “big name” and held by accident or design based on belief in his future.

Also, Camp No. 1 often use stories by unknown — need new blood; forced by the excellence of the story, etc., etc.

Magazines might be divided into two classes on another basis. One class makes all “unknown” Mss. work their way up to the editor through a staff of assistants, the assistants of least experience reading first. The natural method of “efficiency,” but it means that a green hand can throw out a story that a better judge would have seized upon or at least recognized as the work of an author worth coaching along.

The other class brings “unknown” Mss. to the editor himself first, or to the fiction editor who has final, or near-final, say as to choice of Mss.

There are still other ways in which magazines divide into general classes, but I think the one point that is most illuminative to beginners, that they seem never to learn out for themselves and that they need to know as the first step in selling Mss., is the fact that no two magazines have exactly the same wants and that no magazine has the same wants all the time, even when it remains under the same editor and the same policy.

It is too large a subject to cover in a letter, but one good key to the situation is that each issue of any magazine is a carefully rounded out product of balanced interests, an organic whole, not a haphazard collection. It follows that a magazine must keep on hand a sufficient supply of each element in the balance at which it aims — humor, pathos, tragedy, love, adventure, psychology; variety in geographical settings, classes of people, human activities; short, medium and long lengths; description, appeal, problems, narrative; etc., etc. ad infinitum. It follows that when the inventory runs low in certain types that particular magazine becomes very eager for these types and less eager for the types with which it is well supplied. In a month or two its needs may be exactly reversed.

As to your second question: “Why do editors reject Mss.?” Because 90% of them are so damned bad. Also because no magazine has room for many stories. Adventure, for example, appearing 24 times a year, prints about 250 short and long stories; it receives about 5,000. That is only 5%; magazines publishing fewer stories per year will average closer to 2%.”


From: Unknown source, i lost the reference. Sorry.

Arthur S. Hoffman and the famous boy's series he influenced

I asked a question in the previous post
about Arthur S. Hoffman:

Which
unknown writer was initially rejected by Hoffman, but took his advice in the
rejection letter; went on to contribute to Adventure, and later author many
books in a famous series for boys? Put your guesses, answers in comments.

Nobody guessed the right answer, maybe y'all knew it already. Anyway, the right answer is Leslie McFarlane, and the
series is the Hardy Boys,
which you may have come across. From The Secret of the Hardy Boys: Leslie McFarlane and the Stratemeyer
Syndicate by Marilyn S. Greenwald:

The
detailed comments from Adventure editor Arthur Sullivant Hoffman, in particular,
left him so depressed that he was tempted to take a walk after reading
it—”straight into the lake,” he joked in his autobiography. After the initial
shock, however, Les was smart enough to reread the criticisms and profit from
them: “I realized that this was advice with a value beyond rubies. Mr. Hoffman was
an editor who wasn’t above taking time out to give a hand to a beginner who
needed help. What he had done, simply; was to save this beginner about two years
of trial and error." Even as a young man, Les was determined and practical. He
listened to criticism and took it in the spirit in which it was given—a quality
that would reap benefits throughout his life.

Arthur S. Hoffman - A biography of the editor of Adventure magazine

Arthur Sullivant Hoffman was an American magazine editor, best known for editing the famous pulp magazine Adventure from 1912–1927, as well as playing a role in the creation of the American Legion.

Arthur S. Hoffman in 1915

He was born on 28 September 1876, the son of Judge Ripley C. Hoffman and Mary Eliza Sullivant, in Columbus, Ohio. He was the only child of his father’s second marriage.

He attended school in Columbus, graduating from the Columbus high school and went on to get his BA from Ohio State University in 1897. His first job was as an English and literature teacher in the Coshocton high school, where he taught till 1899. He seems to have had some adventures of his own on a bicycle trip through France and Spain at this time.

In September 1899, in partnership with Walter Collins O’Kane, his classmate from school and college, he bought the “Buckeye” newspaper, published in Troy, Ohio. He was the joint editor and manager, and remained with the paper for the next 3 years. During this time, his father passed away, on 14 April 1900.

He seems to have a 2 year itch, changing jobs every couple of years after this. He became assistant editor at the literary magazine, The Chautuaquan (1902-03) and the Smart Set, (1903-04). Next, he joined Watson’s magazine (1904-1906), a controversial muckraking magazine run by Thomas Watson, where he became a managing editor after starting out as an assistant editor.

While working at Watson’s magazine he got married to Mary Denver James, a Bryn Mawr graduate, linguist and author on 14 October 1905. They might have met at meetings of the Ohio Mycological Society, of which both were members. His mother passed away earlier the same year, on 17 March 1905.

The last of these 2 year stints was at the Transatlantic Tales magazine, which published translated fiction, in 1907. This is where he met Sinclair Lewis, who worked there translating stories.

These editorships are well known; not so well known is that he was an author, producing a series of Irish stories about a Irish crook called Patsy Moran, and other stories that appeared in newspapers. He wrote at least five of the Patsy Moran stories for McClure’s and Everybody’s magazine:

• Patsy Moran and the lunatic. McClure’s August 1905
• Patsy Moran and the orange paint. Everybody’s, July 1907
• Patsy Moran and the warnings. McClure’s, July 1907
• Patsy Moran and the trappings of chivalry. Everybody’s, July 1908 
• Patsy Moran, the book and its covers. McClure’s. August 1908

These jobs put him in the right place at the right time, and the right place was the job of the assistant editor of The Delineator, a woman’s magazine run by the Ridgway Company, and the right time was 1908, when he started this job.Professional success was accompanied by personal tragedy. His wife passed away five days after the birth of a boy, Lyne Starling, on 12 August 1910.

 In 1909, the Ridgway Company was acquired by the Butterick Company, a magazine company that had originally begun by selling magazines with sewing designs for women and had gone on to become a standalone publishing business. The Ridgway Company was bought out for one million dollars (worth about 30 million dollars in today’s money). 

The Butterick Company wanted to start a new magazine of outdoor action called Adventure, aimed at both men and women. Trumbull White, a noted explorer, was the first editor of Adventure, and it seems that Arthur S. Hoffman used to assist him. This may have been an official arrangement, or just the routine help around the office. What is clear is that the first time Hoffman was listed in Adventure as being on the magazine’s staff is in the issue of November 1911, and he was listed as managing editor in the issue of February 1912.

Hoffman had a clear editorial policy for Adventure, and he wasn’t shy in voicing his opinions on what he wanted:

Uses short stories of any length, but those under 3000 words preferred. Wants clean stories of action, well told for discriminating readers. Uses serials up to 90000 words, and novelettes up to 60,000 words; also some verse, sixteen lines or under, and some prose fillers of 250 to 650 words in keeping with the general character of the magazine.

Adventure's preferences are stated to be: "First of all, clearness and simplicity; convincingness, or truth to life and human nature; well-drawn characters; careful workmanship. We want stories of action laid any place and any time—except in the future. We strongly prefer outdoor stories, and are glad to get stories of foreign lands. All stories must be clean and wholesome in expression, content and intent, but we want no preaching or moralizing. We accept stories either with or without the love-element; with or without women characters, but no stories in which the love-element is of more than secondary interest. We want no 'fluffy,' society, boudoir stories. We avoid psychological sex problem, sophisticated, supernatural and improbable stories; also stories of smuggling; mixed-color marriages; society atmosphere, or generally, millionaire circles; prisons; slums; newspaper offices and reporters; doubles; lost wills; memory lost or restored by injuries, etc.; lunatics; the moonshiner's daughter who loves a revenue officer; college; and marvelous inventions. We have little interest in baseball, football, golf, racing, tennis, track athletics, etc."

Mr. Hoffman adds an earnest appeal to the women writers. “Why,” he says, “do so many of you send us manuscripts that are as unsuited to Adventure as a tough prize-fight story is to the Churchman ? Thy send us a fluffy story opening with a boudoir talk between Mabel and Lucille about their silly, sugary love-affairs, or Stories of dull domestic or butterfly society life ?“

Or what he didn’t want:

“Most of the stories we turn down are lacking in character work. The author gives his folks names—‘John Jones’ or ‘Mary Smith’ without any other attempt to make them stand out. Somebody said the assigning of only one trait to a character would fix him’ in the reader’s mind. Well, that’s pretty elemental, but it’s better than nothing.”

“We also find in many of the manuscripts submitted a lack of relative proportion in plots. A tremendous temptation beckons the amateur writer who is telling the story of something that actually happened to enlarge on one interesting thing far beyond its merits. Because it was important at the time, it is more vivid in the writer’s mind than big incidents in the plot development, and he goes to pieces on that. Besides this, a man who has actually experienced adventure is often unable to know what incidents really were thrilling. He lacks the sense of dramatic values. A fellow dropped into the office the other day — began to tell me about killing an elephant. I didn’t care how they killed elephants. Quite nonchalantly he mentioned that there had been room on the tree concealing his servant and himself for only one man, so his little black servant boy had swung off to the ground. Then he went right on with his story—never even noticed the dramatic value of that incident. An elephant was more important to him than a little black boy, and he didn’t have the imagination to see that possibly others wouldn’t see the thing in the same light.”

“Though Adventure occasionally uses newspaper stories, we are against them as a genus. The stories of this type are usually pretty old ones to the reader and he is bewildered by technicalities and local color. Very often the writer is too young to write about anything—particularly when he hasn’t grasped his environment yet. Worst of all the usual plot of this type is the attempted and tiresome air of very youthful cynicism so blatantly handed out to the long-suffering readers in a majority of these tales.”

“Why do editors reject Mss?” Because 90% of them are so damned bad. Also because no magazine has room for many stories. Adventure,for example, appearing 24 times a year, prints about 250 short and long stories; it receives about 5,000. That is only 5%; magazines publishing fewer stories per year will average closer to 2%.”

I think that in setting these guidelines, Hoffman was influenced by his background and training. As an English literature graduate, he valued simplicity, clarity and good plotting. From his days at Watson’s magazine, he valued contrary opinions, and wasn’t afraid to voice them.

In his book, “Fundamentals of Fiction Writing”, he acknowledged various influences on his editorial policies, ranging from his college courses, where he learned that:

• The range of variation in imaginative responses among readers is huge.
• Readers find enjoyment in fiction because they are vicariously living the experiences of the hero.

He also acknowledged Tolstoy’s “What is Art?” as guiding him to emphasize simplicity.

However, I think the popular features in Adventure - “Campfire” (Letters from readers and introductions, other letters from authors), “Wanted—Men and Adventurers” (For Hire and Wanted ads for Adventurers), “Ask Adventure” (Ask an expert) and “Lost Trails” (Find people with whom you had lost touch) - were his own ideas. He had this to say about starting Campfire:

“Gradually it grew on me that here was something more than a fiction magazine ... Here was a certain community of interest. Among people who had hitherto had had no common meeting-place, no means of communication among themselves. Why not make that magazine that had collected them their meeting place?. . . Our ‘Camp- Fire’ represents human companionship and fellowship.”

This connection with the readers, and Hoffman’s editorial voice were what made Adventure different from the other pulps. That, and the constraint of starting out with a small budget for payments to authors, which made him seek out new authors who could work with him to get what he wanted. He succeeded at this, discovering and growing a stable of excellent authors including Talbot Mundy, Harold Lamb, Arthur O. Friel, Gordon Young, Hugh Pendexter, L. Patrick Greene, W.C. Tuttle, Georges Surdez, Albert Wetjen, Capt. A.E. Dingle and many others.

Adventure was a success under Hoffman, the circulation reached its peak of ~300,000. Argosy and The Popular Magazine were the only magazines with a higher circulation at the time. The number of issues went from once a month to twice a month and at its peak, it was being published thrice a month.

As if that wasn’t enough work to take on, Hoffman also played a part in setting up the American Legion before the first World War. On March 5, 1915, the American Legion was incorporated in New York. The stated objective of the organization was to organize American citizens to serve the country in time of war. The incorporation papers bore the names of Alexander M. White, Julien T. Davies, Jr., Arthur S. Hoffman, E. Ormonde Power and Theodore Roosevelt, Jr.

The tale of the origin of the American Legion was told by Dr. J. E. Hausmann, a former army officer:

“A young American named E. D. Cook, who had left the United States presumably to join one of the European armies had providentially mailed a letter to the magazine editor of Adventure before sailing and in it had proposed a legion of adventurers to serve the country in warfare. The editor, Arthur Sullivant Hoffman, laid the plans before General Wood. The latter had approved of them, said Hausmann, as a valuable movement in the direction of preparedness. Hausmann pointed out that there were exactly eighteen men in the National Reserve. He said nothing of Cook’s fate.”

At around this time, he married again, on August 5, 1915 to Mary Emily Curtis of Syracuse, New York.

Hoffman wasn’t leaving anything to chance in the coming war; he got kids involved as well. In 1916, he helped set up the National School Camp Association to provide a supplementary means of defense by training boys from the age of 12 to 18, when they could enroll in the army.

Arthur S. Hoffman in 1925

Things went steadily well for Hoffman and Adventure till 1926. In that year , the owner of the Butterick Company, George Warren Wilder, decided to retire and sold a controlling stake to S. R. Latshaw and Joseph A. Moore. Latshaw had been the advertising director of the Butterick Company from 1915. Moore had been the treasurer of Good Housekeeping, Harper’s Bazaar, and other publications belonging to William Randolph Hearst. With new ownership came new management and directions. The Butterick Company took over management control of Ridgway, and decided to make Adventure into a “slick” magazine like Harper’s or Scribner’s.

For the next year, Hoffman watched the magazine he had grown turn into something he didn’t like, and saw its circulation drop by a fifth. He decided to leave Adventure, a decision which he announced in the Campfire of June 15, 1927.

“To have been with Adventure ever since it was born in 1910, nearly nineteen years ago, and at last to say good-by makes something of an occasion, at least as far as I am concerned. While I go of my own will, it is not possible to sever without a very real regret my relations not only with the magazine itself but with all of you who gather at Camp-Fire. We have met and talked together through the years, been friends, and saying good-by is not easy for me. So little easy that I shall say it briefly and have done.”

He became the editor of McClure’s in June 1927, and stayed there for nearly a year. In April, 1928, Hearst sold the magazine to James R. Quirk, publisher of Photoplay and Opportunity. Hoffman left the job subsequently, and went back to teaching. He became a teacher of fiction writing, authoring several books

• ·         The writing of fiction (1934)
• ·         The Service Offered in the Teaching of Fiction Writing (1939)
• ·         Fiction writing self-taught: a new approach (1939)

in addition to the books he had written earlier:

• ·         Fundamentals of Fiction Writing (1922)
• ·         Fiction writers on fiction writing (1923)

Hoffman died in Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania, on March 11, 1966 at his son’s home. He was survived by his son, Lyne S.S. Hoffman, a teacher of technical writing at Pennsylvania State University, and three grandchildren.

Arthur S. Hoffman

Bonus question for Hoffman fans: Which unknown writer was initially rejected by Hoffman, but took his advice in the rejection letter; went on to contribute to Adventure, and later author many books in a famous series for boys? Put your guesses, answers in comments. The answer will be in tomorrow's post.

Sources:

Article title	Author	Journal		Date
Magazines in the twentieth century	Theodore Bernard Peterson			1956
		The Magazine maker	Vol 3-4	August 1912-July 1913
The Editor’s attitude towards the young author	Arthur S. Hoffman	The Best college short stories 1917-1918
Training the younger boys		American Defense	Vol 1 no 1-9	Jan-Oct 1916
The stories editors buy and why, compiled by Jean Wick	Jean Wick
Where and how to sell manuscripts; a directory	William Bloss McCourtie
		The Writer	Vol 27	1915
Arthur Sullivant Hoffman, ‘97		Ohio State University monthly	Vol 6	July 1914-June 1915
The standard index of short stories, 1900-1914	Francis James Hannigan
Who’s Who in America, 1920
Members of the Ohio Mycological Club – Fourth list		Ohio mycological bulletin		1903
Sketches of 21 Magazines: 1905-1930, Volume 2	Frank Luther Mott
As If: Modern Enchantment and the Literary Pre-History of Virtual Reality	Michael T. Saler
	1917	The writer	Vol 29	1917
Letter from George Warren  Wilder to Theodore  Dreiser				Apr 26, 1926
Delineator and Designer to be merged in the fall		Watertown Daily Times		June 17, 1926
Arthur Sullivant Hoffman dies in Pennsylvania		The Putnam County Courier		March 17, 1966