The Third Edit: A publisher plans to ditch book blurbs. It’s about time

Feb 8, 2025 07:02 IST First published on: Feb 8, 2025 astatine 07:02 IST

As acold arsenic anecdotes go, the blurb, that ubiquitous endorsement of literate merit connected publication covers, had a alternatively unpropitious beginning. In 1856, the 2nd variation of Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass bore a glowing tribute from the philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson: “I greet you astatine the opening of a large career”. Only, it aboriginal came to airy that it was from a backstage connection betwixt Emerson and Whitman. The erstwhile had nary thought that his well-meaning words of encouragement would, without his consent, lend themselves to a nationalist seal of support and motorboat a selling inclination successful which glib testimonies would go advertorial pitches. Sean Manning, steadfast of Simon & Schuster’s flagship imprint successful the US, present seems keen to subordinate the trend. Writing successful The Publisher’s Weekly, helium has declared that his authors would nary longer beryllium required to indulge successful this peculiar frivolity arsenic it lone perpetuates “an incestuous and unmeritocratic literate ecosystem that often rewards connections implicit talent”.

It is simply a brave caller satellite that Manning foresees, since the signifier of the blurb is present entrenched successful the publication trade. Coined successful 1907 by the American satirist Gelett Burgess, it referred to the effusive, exaggerated — often vacuous — praise from one’s ain hype squad comprising friends and colleagues successful precocious places. Often a quid pro quo arrangement, this enforced collegiality has created opaque powerfulness structures and insular cliques that further a civilization of work and favouritism.