Happy Birthday, Cliff Notes

It's the birthday of Clifton Keith Hillegass, born in the small town of Rising City, Nebraska in 1918. He is more widely known as the progenitor of that savior of undergraduates everywhere, CliffsNotes. He got a job with a textbook company. He left briefly to serve in the Air Corps during WWII, and he came back to his old job, but with new job duties, including traveling around the country buying and selling used textbooks. He was in Toronto for work when he met Jack Cole, a publisher and bookstore owner who published condensed versions of 16 Shakespeare plays, which he called "Cole's Notes." Cole suggested that Hillegass publish his outlines in America. So Hillegass agreed to pay Cole a royalty, and he changed the name to Cliff's Notes (the company eventually dropped the apostrophe in "Cliff's"). He borrowed $4,000 and convinced a friend at a printing house in Lincoln to print 33,000 copies. He designed the black and yellow cover, and he distributed that first batch out of his basement — his wife wrote letters to all their contacts in bookstores, and his daughter stuffed envelopes. That was in August of 1958. By the end of the year, he had sold 58,000 copies.

Hillegass didn't write the summaries himself, but he loved literature, from classics to science fiction to mysteries. Word is they were mostly written by literature graduate students, who have stupidly tiny stipends. He wanted his books to make literature more accessible to students. He did not intend for CliffsNotes to replace reading the book in the first place, and was upset that they had gained a reputation as cheat sheets. He put a signed note in each pamphlet that read: "A thorough appreciation of literature allows no shortcuts."

CliffsNotes has evolved with changing technology. These days, if you visit its Web site and look up Pride and Prejudice, you are encouraged to download an app for your phone. But you can still get the paperbound versions, and they have expanded into test prep. You can get CliffsNotes on the Praxis teacher exam, any AP exam, math prep for any standardized test, and so on.

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The Consequence of Matters

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