| Gelett Burgess  AKA Frank Gelett Burgess
Born: 30-Jan-1866
Birthplace: Boston, MA
Died: 17-Sep-1951
Location of death: Carmel, CA
Cause of death: unspecified
Gender: Male
Race or Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Straight
Occupation: Cartoonist, Poet Nationality: United States
Executive summary: Has never seen a purple cow Former draftsman, he became a magazine editor and then cartoonist/author when he began publishing in book form his works of humor in 1907. Burgess was fired from the faculty of UC Berkeley in 1894 after his involvement with the toppling of a horrifically ugly statue. He coined the term "blurb" in 1907, when he claimed "Miss Belinda Blurb" as the author of a blurb that he obviously wrote himself.
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.
As Burgess grew to hating this quattrain, he wrote another, more ominous one:
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 founded the San Francisco Boys Club.
Wife: Estelle Loomis (m. 1914)
University: MIT (1887)
Dutch Treat Club (1921-51)
Author of books:
Goops and How to Be Them (1900)
The Burgess Nonsense Book (1901)
Are You a Bromide (1906)
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