Book Review

Blurb Your Enthusiasm: Chapter and verse on history of the all-important book blurb

They may persuade you to buy a book and can be unpopular with writers, but the publisher’s synopsis on the back cover or jacket flap of a book has been called one of the purest literary forms

Louise Willder: has written more than 5,000 blurbs during her 25-year career as a copywriter in publishing

George Orwell called them “disgusting tripe”. JD Salinger refused to allow them on his work. But Cecil Day-Lewis suggested they were one of the purest literary forms and the Italian author Roberto Calasso described them as “like a letter written to a stranger”.

Writers have very different attitudes to blurbs, their publisher’s synopsis on the back cover or jacket flap of a book. A blurb should set the scene, grab our attention while leaving us ...