Love the Wendy Cope blurb. I describe the publisher's back cover summary as the blurb, other writers' comments as endorsements. In that sense, I have blurbed many times as a poetry editor, but never endorsed. I was asked for an endorsement only once, but given a 48 hours deadline, so refused. I have been chasing my own blurbs/endorsements for my forthcoming book, and am aware how much work goes into those few sentences. My publisher tells me some endorsers don't read the whole book. Judging by the names that recur on several back covers, I can believe it.
I know one well-known poet who has an alter-ego whose only existence is in writing promotional blurbs for the poet’s own work. I’m not sure anyone has yet guessed, and the poet may not be on their own in this delightfully subversive habit.
I’m intrigued! It’s not on my radar. I know Don Paterson has used a number of foreign noms de plume in his poems over the years, but I haven’t spotted one in his cover copy…
Blurbs are quite like peacocking for us writers, aren’t they? I have written quips for other authors, and while I try to make the focus their book, my choice of vocabulary / turn of phrase inevitably fulfils a sort of ego-boosting prophecy: the person reading will perhaps also be intrigued by the blurbs in addition to the book itself.
Yes, I think blurbs do often reveal how an author would like their own work to be praised! And as a critic I guess that’s partly why I’m interested in them, as little implicit statements of ambition…
There’s a really good essay on Blurbs by Abigail Williams in Book Parts, edited by Dennis Duncan and Adam Smyth. She connects them to, among other things, the praise poems with which early-modern texts were commonly garlanded.
Thanks for this piece, Jeremy. Coincidentally I was reading an article this morning in the New Statesman - by Sarah Churchwell on 'The Great Gatsby'. Apparently Fitzgerald told his editor that he wanted to keep clichés "trite phrases" like "'Surely the book of the spring!' out of the advertising' of the forthcoming book..!
Some UK publishers still reserve the word ‘blurb’ for their own dust-jacket statement, the summary of what the book is. What is the name for the statement of praise by another writer? ‘Puff’ is a good one.
There is a special category: blurbs (original UK sense) written by the author her/himself. Did Eliot write his own blurbs? Or Raine? Or other poets who worked for publishers?
At a book launch for James Kelman’s novel ‘How late it was, how late’ I picked up a copy and read the blurb (original UK sense). It had the unmistakable Kelman tone and rhythms. I approached the author and asked him if he had written the blurb. He said shyly that he had.
Love the Wendy Cope blurb. I describe the publisher's back cover summary as the blurb, other writers' comments as endorsements. In that sense, I have blurbed many times as a poetry editor, but never endorsed. I was asked for an endorsement only once, but given a 48 hours deadline, so refused. I have been chasing my own blurbs/endorsements for my forthcoming book, and am aware how much work goes into those few sentences. My publisher tells me some endorsers don't read the whole book. Judging by the names that recur on several back covers, I can believe it.
I know one well-known poet who has an alter-ego whose only existence is in writing promotional blurbs for the poet’s own work. I’m not sure anyone has yet guessed, and the poet may not be on their own in this delightfully subversive habit.
I’m intrigued! It’s not on my radar. I know Don Paterson has used a number of foreign noms de plume in his poems over the years, but I haven’t spotted one in his cover copy…
Blurbs are quite like peacocking for us writers, aren’t they? I have written quips for other authors, and while I try to make the focus their book, my choice of vocabulary / turn of phrase inevitably fulfils a sort of ego-boosting prophecy: the person reading will perhaps also be intrigued by the blurbs in addition to the book itself.
Yes, I think blurbs do often reveal how an author would like their own work to be praised! And as a critic I guess that’s partly why I’m interested in them, as little implicit statements of ambition…
I’m not even sure it can be avoided? How do you make a book sound exciting without a bit of flair?
For me, one of the definitive comments on blurbs is the poem on the back of A. E. Stallings’s “Hapax”:
Antiblurb
This is not necessary. This is neither
Crucial nor salvation. It is no hymn
To harmonize the choirs of seraphim
Nor any generation’s bold bellwether
Leading the flock, no iridescent feather
Dropped from the Muse’s wing. It does not limn,
Or speak in tongues, or voice the mute, or dim
Outmoded theories with its fireworks. Rather
This is flawed and mortal, and its stains
Bear the evidence of taking pains.
It did not have to happen, won’t illumine
The smirch of history, the future’s omen.
Necessity is merely what sustains—
It’s what we do not need that makes us human.
[I’ve been neglecting your posts but want to catch up on reading them!]
Nice -- and a sonnet to boot!
Enjoyed this - I wasn't aware of that wonderful Cope example
Thanks, John! If the author of the Cope blurb wasn’t Cope herself, I suspect it may have been her editor, Craig Raine…
There’s a really good essay on Blurbs by Abigail Williams in Book Parts, edited by Dennis Duncan and Adam Smyth. She connects them to, among other things, the praise poems with which early-modern texts were commonly garlanded.
Ah, thanks for this! Sounds like a handy and interesting book in general.
It’s an excellent book! Highly recommended.
Thanks for this piece, Jeremy. Coincidentally I was reading an article this morning in the New Statesman - by Sarah Churchwell on 'The Great Gatsby'. Apparently Fitzgerald told his editor that he wanted to keep clichés "trite phrases" like "'Surely the book of the spring!' out of the advertising' of the forthcoming book..!
‘The book of the spring!’ does rather imply it will be a passing fad…
Yes!
Or maybe just a wet book.
Some UK publishers still reserve the word ‘blurb’ for their own dust-jacket statement, the summary of what the book is. What is the name for the statement of praise by another writer? ‘Puff’ is a good one.
There is a special category: blurbs (original UK sense) written by the author her/himself. Did Eliot write his own blurbs? Or Raine? Or other poets who worked for publishers?
At a book launch for James Kelman’s novel ‘How late it was, how late’ I picked up a copy and read the blurb (original UK sense). It had the unmistakable Kelman tone and rhythms. I approached the author and asked him if he had written the blurb. He said shyly that he had.
That's a great spot! I wonder if any has examined the blurbs for Eliot's Faber collections using the same stylistic approach...
Thanks for the photograph of the Leaves of Grass book. I had never seen it.
Nor had I until I looked it up! Most poetry books wouldn’t have a wide enough spine for a quote…
The most over-the-top blurb I've seen was from noted blurbaholic, Jorie Graham, in her famous blurb for Mark Levine's first book, which I wrote about many years ago: https://poetrysnark.blogspot.com/2006/10/gives-good-blurb.html
Wow -- that's not a blurb, it's a sermon!