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Burgess, Gelett

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Frank Gelett Burgess (January 30, 1866 - September 18, 1951) was an artist, art critic, poet, author, and humorist. He was born in Boston, and graduated from Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a B.S., in 1887.

It is reported that he lost his job as a technical drawing instructor at the University of California, Berkeley (1891-1894) because of unmentionable alterations of statues.

He is most famous for writing the poem Purple Cow (in 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!

Having become inextricably linked with this verse, he wrote the following Confession: and a Portrait Too, Upon a Background that I Rue:

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!

The word "blurb", meaning a short description of a book, film, or other product written for promotional purposes, was coined by Burgess in 1907, when he attributed the effusively complimentary jacket copy of one of his books, Are You a Bromide?, to a Miss Belinda Blurb.

His detective writings are made up of four novels and three books of short stories.