blurbn.

1914 G. Burgess Burgess Unabridged 7 Blurb, 1. A flamboyant advertisement; an inspired testimonial. 2. Fulsome praise; a sound like a publisher... 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’.

1918 H. V. O'Brien Diary 30 May in Wine, Women & War (1926) 106 Americans, despite blurbs in home press, [have] not yet succeeded in revolutionizing art of war.

1923 Nation 1 Aug. 121/2 The publishers..clapped on a jacket containing a blurb.

1924 J. Galsworthy White Monkey 214 What shall I do? It's so darned crude. ‘Couldn't let you go, old man, without’—blurb!

1924 Spectator 27 Sept. 426 The note of vanity is ominously accentuated by the publisher's blurb on the dust~cover, as silly and vulgar as the present writer has ever seen.

1925 Daily Sketch 22 May 7/3 A book reviewer who probably neglects to read the publishers' blurbs on the jackets.

1926 Times Lit. Suppl. 21 Oct. 710/2 The paragraph briefly setting forth the merits of the book (known in ‘the trade’ as a ‘blurb’).

1934 A. Huxley Beyond Mexique Bay 2 The blurb-writers promise to take you into the very heart of all these variegated delights.

1947 Penguin Music Mag. Sept. 60 The cast, the ‘blurb’ tells us, includes the pick of the younger generation of Italian operatic singers.

1948 Penguin Music Mag. Oct. 22 Her name appeared recently [in concert advertisements] mixed up with a blurb about ‘the greatest living exponent’ and so on.

1955 Times 4 Aug. 9/5 For why must publishers prefix to novels of this school a blurb in which much of the substance of the thriller is already revealed?

1928 Publishers' Weekly 10 Nov. 1982 Only a fraction of books issued each year are worth while—Yet each is blurbed and ballyhooed as an authentic masterpiece.