New-York tribune., 1918-11-17
The Gilded Blurb

The plain, unadorned blurb of COM
merce, brazen and blatant, is fearsome
and hideous thing. Goodness knows how
many millions of readers it has kept
away from books and magazines! For
book it ornaments the paper cover
with ingenious misinformation cast in
that extraordinary jargon in which adj
vertising experts live and move. For
magazine it elbows the story away from
first place, and with the smart foot
work Of an elephant seeks to push the
reader into the thing to the tune of
merry quip ora solemn tag, slappng you
on the back or dropping a preparatory
tear as the case demands One magazine
editor, we recall, plasters his blurb
squarely in the middle of his victims
first page, so that the piece itself is but
sward to his own monument, a unique
atrocity the blurb in it's most barbaric
mien.
Now comes The blurb, new style. It
is in the disguised shape of foreword
by an author at least slightly less in
significant than the author himself At
it's best this gilded blurb is by Mr.. Wells,
himself, advertising for love Mr.. Frank
Swinnerton's "Nocturne." At its worst
but why repeat the spectacle Of two
minor poets patting each other on the
back to impress the public! Let us take
the lls-Swinnerton episode as the
high mark Of such burberry. If the sys-
TEN held anything worth while, surely
here the reader would be rewarded.
But not at all. Mr.. Wells fumbles
around like an awkward toastmaster
Chiefly he discusses his own appetite for
literature. OF critical wisdom there is
not trace. Respecting any personal
account of Mr.. Swinnerton there is equal
silence. Bored and languid, the reader
pushes on to find unfold the rarest of
tales, so beautifully shaped and fash
ioned that the alien excrescence at the
front takes on the shape of downright
sin. A barker shouting the glories of
the Parthenon would hold the same sort
of insult.
Is there anything by way of prelim-
mary that reader really wants to know
about his mental fodder? The "Unpopu-
lar Review tried the plan of anonymity
on the theory that the name of the al-
thor was no readers business This is
dle-headedness at the other swing of
the pendulum. Surely the identity of the
writer is legitimate and necessary infor-
nation in world where personality is
still by far the most interesting phe-
nomenon of nature. Give us the name
of the author-and at the head, not the
tail of the piece--and what else? Well,
"'The Atlantic Monthly" gives personal
facts in a separate column; and that
other high mark of American period
lcal literature, "rhe Saturday Evening
Post" gives similar facts or near-facts
also in spot by themselves
The ld-fashoned introduction bv the
author himself served somewhat the
same purpose. There you saw the great
man for moment off guard and talking
like real human being blushing, stam-
mering, thanking his friends and digging
his enemies. And so much can be ap-
proved. The work speaks for itself.
Yet. if you will, you can find out some
thing Of the man or woman behind the
typewriter, an entirely different propo-
sition, yet often quite as interesting.
Authors are people, in short, and, as
such, need revelation. Their works do
not Or at any rate they should not, as
the burb, gilded or ungilded, lavishly
proves.