Arthur Sullivant Hoffman

Arthur Sullivant Hoffman (1876–1966) was an American magazine editor. Hoffman is best known for editing the acclaimed pulp magazine Adventure from 1912–1927, as well as playing a role in the creation of the American Legion.

Hoffman was born in Columbus, Ohio, and graduated from Ohio State University a Phi Beta Kappa in 1897. He briefly taught English in a high school and did miscellaneous journalism in Ohio. He worked with several magazines: The Chatauquan, The Smart Set, and Watson's Magazine, before moving on to become managing editor of Transatlantic Tales, and The Delineator, where Hoffman worked with Theodore Dreiser. Hoffman also wrote a number of short stories for Everybody's Magazine and McClure's Magazine, including a humorous series about the adventures of an Irishman, Patsy Moran.

In 1910, the Ridgway company decided to launch a pulp magazine, Adventure. Hoffman was on Adventure's staff from its beginning, and succeeded Trumbull White as editor in 1912.

Hoffman began to develop a "stable" of writers for Adventure that would publish adventure fiction that was well-plotted, had good characterization and was historically and geographically accurate. Hoffman's Adventure stable would eventually include some of the most distinguished popular fiction writers of the era, including John Buchan, Rafael Sabatini, Talbot Mundy, Harold Lamb, Edgar Wallace, Walt Coburn, W.C. Tuttle, Arthur O. Friel, Gordon Young and T.S. Stribling. Bleiler described Hoffman as a "tenacious, contentious and brilliant" editor. For the first two years of his term as Adventure editor, Hoffman was assisted by writer Sinclair Lewis. Hoffman and Lewis worked on the famous "Camp-Fire" page in "Adventure", which featured readers' letters, biographies of the magazines' authors and discussions of various issues. Hoffman added several departments to Adventure, including "Ask Adventure", where numerous experts in various fields answered readers' questions on subjects as diverse as bicycle repair and crocodile trapping. Other departments Hoffman created included "Lost Trails", (helping readers find lost relatives and friends), "Weapons, Past and Present" (the history of weapons) and "Mountains and Mountaineering" (discussing which mountains were best for climbing, hunting, and camping). .

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