Our blurbs, although they weren’t written about our novel, are authentic eighteenth-century blurbs or, in some cases, authentic eighteenth-century parodies of what was then called “puffery.” Puffery usually appeared in dedications and prefaces, where it tended to be flowery and silly and, therefore, easily mocked by the great satirists of the age. Here are the sources for Blindspot’s spurious blurbs.

It may justly be said in its Praise, without Flattery to the Authors, that it is the most Extraordinary Piece that ever was wrote in America.
—Benjamin FRANKLIN, author of the classic Autobiography (1790)

Adapted from an essay Franklin wrote in 1722, under the pseudonym of Mrs. Silence Dogood, for The New-England Courant, a newspaper printed in Boston, where Franklin worked as a printer’s apprentice. We have substituted “America” for “New-England” and “Authors” for “Author.” Franklin’s essay is a parody of a book review, touting the virtues of an atrocious collection of elegies. Franklin explained, “I have determined, when I meet with a Good Piece of New-England Poetry, to give it a suitable Encomium.”

Was there ever yet any thing written by mere man that was wished longer by its readers, excepting Don Quixote, Robinson Crusoe, and Blindspot?
—Samuel JOHNSON, compiler of the best-selling Dictionary (1755)

Adapted from Boswell’s Life of Johnson, 1750. We have substituted Blindspot for Pilgrim’s Progress.

A Piece of this Kind is much wanted in the World, which is but too much, as well as too early, debauched by pernicious Novels.
—Samuel RICHARDSON, author of the debauched novel Pamela (1740)

Taken without alteration from a “letter to the editor” signed “J.B.D.F.” and which Richardson included in the preface to his 1740 novel, Pamela. Most readers suspected that, just as Richardson was actually the author of Pamela (he pretended to be merely the book’s editor and printer), he was also, in fact, J.B.D.F. Richardson, like many eighteenth-century novelists, claimed that Pamela was not a novel but a history, an authentic set of letters, written to and from a real woman, Pamela Andrews, concerning her unfortunate seduction.

A good Book is a Lesson to all its Readers, and of far greater use to the Circle of its Acquaintance than a good Man. Such is this Ingenious and romantick Adventure.
—Henry FIELDING, author of the still more debauched parody Shamela (1741)

Loosely adapted from chapter 1 of Fielding’s satirical novel, Joseph Andrews, 1742, about poor Joseph Andrews’ unfortunate seduction. (Joseph Andrews was supposed to be Pamela’s brother.)

I will tell you in three words what the book is.  –It is a history.—A history! 
—Laurence STERNE, acclaimed author of Tristram Shandy (1759), and no mathematician

Taken unaltered from Tristram Shandy, 1759-61. Sterne was riffing on the claims of novelists like Richardson and Fielding that his fiction was history.

A most inimitable Performance! Who is he, what is he, that could write so excellent a Book?
—John PUFF, the prolific author of very many eighteenth-century blurbs

Taken unaltered from a “letter to the editor” printed as a preface to Shamela, Henry Fielding’s hilarious 1741 satire of Pamela. (John Puff did not exist; Fielding was satirizing the puffery Richardson printed as the preface to Pamela.)