> blurb
> 
> blurb blArb. slang (orig. U.S.). See note below. A brief descriptive
> paragraph or note of the contents or character of a book, printed as
> a commendatory advertisement, on the jacket or wrapper of a newly
> published book. Hence in extended use: a descriptive or commendatory
> paragraph. Also Comb. Said to have been originated in 1907 by Gelett
> Burgess in a comic book jacket embellished with a drawing of a
> pulchritudinous young lady whom he facetiously dubbed Miss Blinda
> Blurb. (D.A.) See Mencken Amer. Lang. Suppl. I. 329.
> 
>    * 1914 G. Burgess Burgess Unabridged 7 Blurb, 1. A flamboyant
>      advertisement; an inspired testimonial. 2. Fulsome praise; a
>      sound like a publisher... On the `jacket' of the `latest'
>      fiction, we find the blurb; abounding in agile adjectives and
>      adverbs, attesting that this book is the `sensation of the
>      year'.
> 
>    * 1918 Wine, Women & War (1926) 106 Americans, despite blurb in
>      home press, [have] not yet succeeded in revolutionizing art of
>      war.
> 
>    * 1923 Nation 1 Aug. 121/2 The publishers..clapped on a jacket
>      containing a blurb.
> 
>    * 1924 Spectator 27 Sept. 426 The note of vanity is ominously
>      accentuated by the publisher's blurb on the dust-cover, as
>      silly and vulgar as the present writer has ever seen.
> 
>    * 1926 Times Lit. Suppl. 21 Oct. 710/2 The paragraph briefly
>      setting forth the merits of the book (known in `the trade' as a
>      `blurb').
> 
>    * 1934 A. Huxley Beyond Mexique Bay 2 The blurb-writers promise
>      to take you into the very heart of all these variegated
>      delights.
> 
>    * 1947 Penguin Music Mag. Sept. 60 The cast, the `blurb' tells
>      us, includes the pick of the younger generation of Italian
>      operatic singers.
> 
>    * 1948 Penguin Music Mag. Oct. 22 Her name appeared recently [in
>      concert advertisements] mixed up with a blurb about `the
>      greatest living exponent' and so on.
> 
>    * 1955 Times 4 Aug. 9/5 For why must publishers prefix to novels
>      of this school a blurb in which much of the substance of the
>      thriller is already revealed?