Gelett Burgess

Frank Gelett Burgess (January 30, 1866 – September 18, 1951) was an American artist, art critic, poet, author and humourist. He is credited with coining the word blurb, a short promotional statement about a piece of creative work, and bromide, a trite or unoriginal phrase intended to soothe or placate, or the boring person who utters those phrases.

Burgess circa 1910

Quotes

• To appreciate nonsense requires a serious interest in life.
  • From the essay The Sense of Humor first published in The Romance of the Commonplace (1902).

• there are no roads in all Bohemia !
  • From the essay Where is Bohemia? in The Romance of the Commonplace (1902).

• A woman and a mouse, they carry a tale wherever they go.
  • Gelett Burgess, The Maxims of Methuselah (1907).

The Purple Cow

Publicity for 1909 Burgess book, expanding his 1906 essay of the same name

The Purple Cow (1895)

• I never saw a purple cow,
  I never hope to see one;
  But I can tell you, anyhow,
  I'd rather see than be one!

Confession (1897)

• Ah, yes, I wrote the "Purple Cow"—
  I'm Sorry, now, I wrote it;
  But I can tell you Anyhow
  I'll Kill you if you Quote it!
  • Poem Confession: and a Portrait Too, Upon a Background that I Rue (1897)
  • Reacting to the many parodies of his poem.

Are You A Bromide? (1906)

• I don't know much about Art, but I know what I like. (p. 24)

• She doesn't look a day over fifty. (p. 24)

• You'll feel differently about these things when you're married. (p. 25)

• It isn't so much the heat... as the humidity. (p. 28)

• You're a sight for sore eyes. (p. 29)

External links

• Open source e-book: "Are You a Bromide?, or, The sulphitic theory expounded and exemplified according to the most recent researches into the psychology of boredom: including many well-known bromidioms now in use" (1909), California Digital Library