Grandma Never Drank Whiskey

When Jock Stanford bets the company on a flashy new speedboat, old Chugger Brown turns back to a forgotten mahogany relic—“Nell,” the lady of yesterday.

Can an aging boat, souped up with forbidden power, out-race a cutthroat rival and save them all—or will she splinter like a tree in a storm?

Adventure magazine debuted in November 1910 from The Ridgway Company (a Butterick subsidiary); the imprint changed to Butterick Publishing Company in October 1926, then to Popular Publications in July 1934, and the magazine continued—through several format shifts—until 1971.

What made Adventure special wasn’t only longevity but ambition: under editor Arthur S. Hoffman (1912–1927) it became a rigorously fact-minded market for historically and geographically “correct” tales, ran innovative reader departments (“The Camp-Fire,” “Ask Adventure”), went to a three-times-a-month schedule at its peak, and built an international audience that included Theodore Roosevelt. In October 1935, Time famously saluted it as “The No. 1 Pulp.”

Beyond sheer thrills, Adventure was a proving ground for writers who treated far-flung settings with reportorial care—Talbot Mundy, Harold Lamb, H. Bedford-Jones, Rafael Sabatini, Georges Surdez, Gordon MacCreagh, Arthur O. Friel, and many more.

The magazine’s pages mixed robust serials with standalone novellas, nurtured ongoing cycles like Lamb’s Cossacks and Mundy’s historical epics, and cultivated unusually engaged reader participation through classifieds like “Wanted-Men and Adventurers” and the “Lost Trails” column. The result was a pulp with a reputation for quality and authenticity that outlasted most rivals.

Here are five standout tales from Adventure magazine:

1. "Tros of Samothrace” — Talbot Mundy, Adventure, February 10, 1925.

Launches Mundy’s anti-Caesar epic—historical adventure at its boldest, and a signature demonstration of the magazine’s appetite for big, meticulously researched serials.

2. "Khlit” — Harold Lamb, Adventure, November 1, 1917.

The first story of Lamb’s gray-bearded Cossack sets the tone for a cycle whose lean prose, cultural breadth, and on-the-ground detail influenced generations of adventure and fantasy writers.

3. "The Pathless Trail” — Arthur O. Friel, Adventure, serialized from October 10, 1921 to November 10, 1921.

A landmark Amazon-jungle saga whose field-experience feel epitomizes Adventure’s “you-are-there” realism and helped cement Friel’s reputation as the pulp’s premier explorer-story hand.

4. "The Green Splotches” — T. S. Stribling, Adventure, January 3, 1920.

A much-reprinted early science-fiction classic about an alien outpost in South America—evidence that Adventurecould stretch beyond pure swashbuckling into idea-driven speculative fiction.

5. "Don Diego Valdez” — Rafael Sabatini, Adventure, June 18, 1921.

An early Captain Blood tale; its presence in Adventure showcases the magazine’s ability to attract top-tier historical romancers and feed material into later landmark novels.

Chapter 6 of 6

PAIN-MAD VENGEANCE

Trapped in an underground hell of disease and death, Paul Lawton turns his torment into fury to face the monstrous master of the plague!

In a climax of fire and madness, the green horror is unmasked—and the true face of evil stares back from beyond the grave!

Chapter 5 of 6

MASTER OF MONSTERS

Dragged into the heart of the swamp, Paul Lawton faces the ghastly truth behind the plague—a nightmare kingdom ruled by a man who has become a monster!

As living corpses close in and the mad surgeon reveals his hideous revenge, Lawton’s only hope lies between love, horror, and the blazing fires of hell itself!

Chapter 4 of 6

DEATH STRIKES AGAIN

In a town gripped by a hideous plague, Paul Lawton races against madness and time to save the woman he loves from a fate written in green fire and death.

But when the dead rise and the living vanish into the swamp, the line between man and monster dissolves in a nightmare of horror and revenge!

Chapter 3 of 6

THE DEAD RETURN

When the green plague tightens its grip on Rillwood, vengeance rises from the grave with arrows and blood-soaked warnings!

Paul Lawton faces madness, murder, and a terror from beyond the veil that no man—or corpse—can escape!

Chapter 2 of 6

ANCIENT ARROWS

From the blighted heart of Blackwater Swamp comes a nightmare of deathless tribes and ghastly sacrifice!

When Paul Lawton’s fevered wound turns green and a woman’s body hangs riddled with ancient arrows, the swamp’s unholy secrets crawl once more into the light of day!

Chapter 1 of 6

IT BEGINS

From the black, stinking depths of Blackwater rises a horror the Wampanoags dared not name!

When Paul Lawton’s camera catches the ghastly truth—a human face behind the green glow—madness and murder slither from the slime to claim the living!