What is the wording on the back cover of a book called?

Question

The wording on the back cover of a book stating a brief discription of the book. What is it called? My 6 yr old daughter came home from school saying it was called a 'blurb'. it may be called this but i have never heard of it. ive told her i will give her £1 if she is right!

Answer 1

Yes your daughter is right, you should be proud she is listning in class, the more little things she picks up the more bigger things she'll pick up, so just careful what you say infont of her!

Answer 2

As you are now already aware, you need to open your purse! I thought I would also look up where the name came from:

Blurb
A blurb is a short summary or some words of praise accompanying a creative work, usually referring to the words on the back of the book but also commonly seen on DVD and video cases, web portals and news websites.

History
The word originated in 1907. US humorist Gelett Burgess's short 1906 book "Are you a bromide?" was presented in a limited edition to an annual trade association dinner. The custom at such events was to have a dust jacket promoting the work and with, as Burgess' publisher B. W. Huebsch described it,

"the picture of a damsel--languishing, heroic, or coquettish — anyhow, a damsel on the jacket of every novel"
In this case the jacket proclaimed "YES, this is a "BLURB"!" and the picture was of a (fictitious) young woman "Miss Belinda Blurb" shown calling out, described as "in the act of blurbing".

The name and term stuck for any publisher's contents on a book's back cover, even after the picture was dropped and only the complementary text remained.

Today
A blurb on a book or a film can be any combination of quotes from the work, the author, the publisher, reviewers or fans, a summary of the plot, a biography of the author or simply claims about the importance of the work. Many humorous books and films parody blurbs that deliver exaggerated praise by unlikely people and insults disguised as praise.

Monty Python and the Holy Grail - "Makes Ben Hur look like an Epic"
1066 and All That - "We look forward keenly to the appearance of their last work"

On the Internet a blurb is used to give a brief description or promotion of an article or other larger work.

(a synopsis is an outline of the whole story - which would rather ruin the book if you know what is going to happen!)

Answer 3

You owe her a pound and a quibble. The quibble is that the full text on the back is not the blurb - a blurb is a quote from someone who read the book (or another work by the author) and liked it. Most books have blurbs on the back (and also sometimes the front and the first few pages), but not everything on the back is a blurb.

Here's an excerpt from a short commentary on blurbs by Roy Peter Clark. The link takes you to the full essay.

"An exploration of the blurb-o-sphere suggests that the blurb, crucial to the success of many books, is a genre unto itself, a pop art form, the haiku of advertising. The Supplement to the OED credits an American humorist with coining the word "blurb" in 1907: "Said to have been originated... by Gelett Burgess in a comic book jacket embellished with a drawing of a pulchritudinous young lady whom he facetiously dubbed Miss Blinda Blurb."

That same satirical tone descends in our time to editor and writer Robert McCrum, who considers the blurb so hyperbolic a form as to require an anti-lexicon. "Intense," he argues, really means "quite boring" and "magisterial" translates to "too long."

Each blurber has a style, and mine is the 28-word blurb. No logic or algorithm there, just the average mileage of my last three trips to sub-blurbia. Take, for example, my praise of Watchdogs, Blogs and Wild Hogs, a collection of quotations on the media: "Gordon Jackson has done us all an immense service by compiling this collection of wise and funny comments upon the media, from Juvenal to the juvenile Howard Stern." (A blurb with a kicker.)

If a good haiku has 17 syllables, why does a good blurb take about 28 words? Shorter ones, to my taste, are chintzy, and longer ones cheesy. Worse than spasms of ecstatic praise ("Compelling!" "Riveting!" "Electrifying!") are blurbs so long they break the boundaries of the form, like a sonnet of 19 lines. Such mini-essays need a different name ("blabs," perhaps?). The collateral damage of blurbosity is to make the reader fear that the work inside is as dense as the praise outside—which, alas, is often the case.

But back to blurbs' raison d'être. They had it right in 1907: the blurb is an ad for the book, designed to persuade the holder to buy it. "

Answer 4

It's called synopsis.

Blurb is the quote from someone who has read the book - like a line fron a newspaper article on the book.

Answer 5

Well if it is a blurb this must be one of the new words around. I always thought it was a synopsis of the book.

Answer 6

Yes, it's called blurb - goodness knows why! It gives a 'thumbnail' outlining the plot to attract readers.

Your daughter's quite right - give her the £1! She deserves it!

Answer 7

That's £1 you owe her....it is called the blurb !

Answer 8

your daughter is not entirely correct, in some publishing houses it is called a cover paragraph. colloquially known as the blurb, any type informing is also known as blurb especially in the advertising industry. you owe her 50p FL

Answer 9

My publisher called it "back cover copy". Blurb is slang for the same.

Answer 10

That's a smart kid you have there! It's definitely called the blurb in publishing circles.

Answer 11

Your daughter is right, it is called a blurb..