A Strange World of Book Blurbs. Pt I.
By: Vik'S Culture Atom
Tags: Books, Publishing, Books And Authors, History, Blurb

Walking into a bookstore, contemporary reader follows a number of steps. First, one needs to choose a section of the shop to dive into, then carefully inspect the shelf in order to pick an appealing title that would, at the same time, not sound too embarrassing, then, finally, bring the book to the counter. The selection process is influenced by a myriad of factors — the light, easy access to the shelves and space arrangement. New items or bestsellers are often placed on a separate stand towards the front, while classics that hasn’t been recently revamped by a Hollywood still, goes to the very back. The choices don’t stop here. The most demanding part of the selection algorithm entails two steps. Having picked a book, a potential reader either opens it in order to get the taste of the first chapter; or turns the book to look at the short texts printed on the back cover. And here comes the blurb.

The information provided on the back varies from genre to genre and from culture to culture. However, independent of the character of the book, it traditionally has a dual nature catering for the interests of two different benefactors. One, is the reader whose main goal is to find out what the book is about, or whether it has been approved by a trustworthy taste. The other beneficiary is the publisher, whose purpose is to promote and sell the book to as many people as possible. In addition, the writer might also play their role.

The appearance of the back cover varies from genre to genre and from one culture to another. The appearance of the back cover varies from genre to genre and from one culture to another. For example, a Russian-speaking reader would likely find a brief abstract which would include five to ten sentences describing the plot, sometimes enriched with a brief citation from the text or a short biographical note about the author. In Russian (or other Eastern-European languages, such as Ukrainian or Belorussian) this back-cover text is traditionally called annotatsia (See fig. 1). The word has nothing to do with a notoriously ambiguous English ‘annotation’. In this particular case we are dealing with an example of so-called translator’s false friends, i.e. words requiring additional cultural context in order to be properly understood . In East Slavic languages annotatsia is defined as “a brief summary of a book, a film, a work of art, an article, etc.”, translated into English as a resumé or an abstract (Milchin).

Fig. 1 The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson (Back cover of the Russian edition)

If Russian speakers are likely to find a very scarce book cover description (if they find it at all), an English-speaking reader turns the book to find a diverse arrangement of texts often printed in varying fonts and ink colours spread all across the cover (fig. 2).

Fig. 2 The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson (Back cover of the US edition)

Among these texts the publisher might include a brief plot summary or (which is often the case with scientific literature and popular non-fiction) an abstract composed by the author proper. However, with all probability the cover will also contain several cited reviews provided by famous writers, periodical critics or known researchers (again depending on the genre). All these short texts combined would be traditionally defined as a blurb.

A tangible difference that we can witness in the arrangement of back cover texts of different publishing cultures gives us a hint that the very essence of the blurb is rooted in the cultural tradition and depends on the habits of a particular environment. For example, due historical isolation Russian speakers weren’t exposed to the 20th century rise of advertisement until 1990s. Moreover, a popular pagan tradition of Eastern Slavic tribes imposed a taboo to praise close kin due to the fear that complimentary language could attract envious spirits. The traces of this taboo is still found in the writing culture, where superlative degree is rarely used in book descriptions and even the concept of reference letters is not yet much used.

Cultural differences aside, however, the function of the back cover remains similar in its core and we don’t need to go too far to find common roots. Coming back to the Russian term annotatsia, we might note that even though its contemporary meaning differs from the English annotation, the two terms do have a common history. Both originate from a post-Augustian Roman term annotatio, which initially denoted a “ruling, a grant, or a privilege granted by the emperor, written in his own hand in purple ink […] and conveyed in rescripts” (Barney 43). In this way, despite cultural and historic differences, book cover information in Russian also presupposes a certain element of recommendation from a higher authority, although does it less obviously and with less sense of urgency than the English blurb. It might be even interesting to look at the reasons why English, usually so flexible with using words in multiple meanings, in this case opted for a neologism. It seems that, consciously or not, the phenomenon itself called for a new and more expressive wording.

Coining of the Term

English or, to be more precise, American term blurb as such presents a noteworthy case. Created as a literary hoax, blurb provides in itself an illuminating insight into how language is formed and what principles it might be guided by. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, the word blurb was coined by the American comedian Gelett Burgess in 1907. Invited to an annual dinner of American Booksellers’ Association, Burgess brought a mock jacket of his new book Are You a Bromide? (See fig. 3). The jacket featured a doctored image of a lady from a dental advertisement, whom Burgess named “Miss Belinda Blurb” and was spiced with a self-congratulatory text, signed by this fictional character:

Say! Ain’t this book a 90 H.P., six-cylinder Seller? If WE do say it as shouldn’t. WE consider that this man Burgess has got Henry James locked into the coal-bin telephoning for “information.” WE expect to sell 350 copies of this great, grand book. … when you’ve READ this masterpiece, you’ll know what a BOOK is…. This Book is the Proud Purple Penultimate!! (Burgess 1)

In 1914, in his similarly satirical Burgess Unabridged: A New Dictionary of Words You Have Always Needed, the humorist defined the blurb as “A flamboyant advertisement; an inspired testimonial […] fulsome praise; a sound like a publisher” (Merriam-Webster).

In Merriam-Webster we find a further explanation:

Burgess adds a note after the definitions which gives clarification: “On the ‘jacket’ of the ‘latest’ fiction, we find the blurb; abounding in agile adjectives and adverbs, attesting that this book is the ‘sensation of the year.’ (Merriam-Webster).

Burgess’ definition of the term together with its functions attests to the fact that blurb was coined as a joke, a satire of the advertising industry, which in those times was a relatively new phenomenon, but was already getting some traction.

In a similar manner, one of the first known blurbs to a certain extent was a hoax as well. Printed on an 1855’s edition of Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, praise from Ralf Waldo Emerson was virtually a line from the letter Emerson wrote Whitman for private use. However Whitman, trying to earn his living of writing, decided to use any methods to sell his book. (Dwyer) It is difficult tell if either a notorious American humorist or a celebrated poet could have predicted such an outcome, but what started as a joke was soon to become an important tool of the publishing industry…