Who is Gelett Burgess?

I'll bet you don't recognize the name. Neither did I. But I'll bet you are familiar with some of his work.

Mr. Burgess left New England with a B.S. from MIT in the 1880's and became a technical drawing instructor at the University of California, Berkley. He abruptly left the employ of the university following the toppling of several Bay area statues which Burgess considered eyesores. Apparently the administration took a dim view of his public vandalism (despite the fact that his students cheered him on).

This prompted a career change which led to him becoming the editor of The Lark, a lighthearted and slightly whimsical literary magazine. In this capacity, he penned, then published a little verse that would eventually become quite famous:

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!

The public lavished attention on this frivolous little verse to the exclusion of his more "literary" contributions. Burgess revealed his frustration with this phenomenon in the final issue of The Lark:

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!

Burgess coined the word "blurb" in 1907 when he attributed some rather complimentary jacket copy found in one of his books to a Miss Belinda Blurb. He also created a syndicated comic strip called "Goops" in 1924 which ran a couple of years.

Frank Gelett Burgess (1866 - 1951). Artist, art critic, poet, author and humorist. Think it's safe to quote The Purple Cow yet?

[I recently came across a stack of yellowed Writer's Digest magazines I hadn't loooked at since 1993. An article by Linda Boch sent me in search of more trivia on Mr. Burgess. And yes, I pitched the mags.]