At its height, Adventure Magazine had a circulation of over 300 thousand and was published three times a month, marking it as one of the most successful fiction pulps of all time (in 1935 Time Magazine dubbed Adventure ‘The No. 1 Pulp’). Adventure gave the audience just what the title suggested; pulse-pounding tales set in exotic locales, desperate journeys on land and sea, western gunfights, jungle explorations, and blade-whirling exploits throughout history. It even frequently intersected with real-world adventures offering true (ish!) accounts of modern day acts of exploration and daring. A host of classic adventure writers appeared in its pages, such as H. Rider Haggard, Rafael Sabbatini, Baroness Orczy, John Buchan, Talbot Mundy, Harold Lamb, and H. Bedford Jones.
Although the magazine retreated into more lurid subject matter as its circulation dipped toward the end of its run, its covers remained at a high standard. Here is a sample from the magazine’s early years, which featured many strikingly minimalistic cover designs:
