[Ads-l] Blurb and blurbing

[Andy Bach]

My Lit Hub Daily newsletter started with:
TODAY: In 1906, at the 1907 American Booksellers Association banquet,
Gelett Burgess hands out copies of his new book Are You A Bromide? The
book jacket features a photo of a woman—Miss Belinda Blurb—and a new
role: blurbing, thus coining the promotional text on a book-jacket.

I was intrigued by what that book could be about and so:
https://www.loc.gov/resource/rbpe.24203600/?st=gallery

But notice that the cover says, surrounding a picture of Miss Blurb,
hand cupped to her mouth and shouting, "YES, this is a “BLURB”! All
the Other Publishers commit them. Why Shouldn't We? MISS BELINDA BLURB
IN THE ACT OF BLURBING ARE YOU A BROMIDE? ... Ask the man at the
counter what HE thinks of it! HE's seen Janice Meredith faded to a
mauve magenta. He's seen BLURBS before, and he's dead wise. He'll say:
This Book is the Proud Purple Penultimate!!"

It would seem that rather than coining the term, he's just being "up
front" (sorry) about it.  But it must've been a thing before, I mean
the dead wise guy has certainly seen them before. Maybe Janice
Meredith has too ... or maybe she's an early blurber.

-- 

a

Andy Bach,
afbach at gmail.com
608 658-1890 cell
608 261-5738 wk

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