In 1939 Ernest Vincent Wright wrote an 50,000-word novel without using a single letter e.
Wright's Gadsby tells the story of a determined 50-year-old who rallies young people to revitalize their dying town of Branton Hills. Wright had to perform linguistic gymnastics to write the novel without using the most common letter in English. He couldn't use simple words like "the," "he," or "she." Numbers one, three, five and everything between six and thirty were off-limits. To write in past tense without "-ed" endings, he relied on creative constructions like "did walk" instead of "walked." He transformed famous quotes — Keats' "a thing of beauty is a joy forever" became "a charming thing is a joy always."
"This story was written, not through any attempt to attain literary merit, but due to a somewhat balky nature, caused by hearing it so constantly claimed that 'it can't be done,'" Wright wrote in his introduction, allowing himself the luxury of using the banned vowel.
To prevent accidental "e" usage, Wright physically tied down the E key on his typewriter. Despite this precaution, four forbidden "e"s slipped into the published version — the word "the" appears three times and "officers" once.
Wright self-published Gadsby. Most copies were destroyed in a warehouse fire. Original editions now command up to $7,500 from collectors. Wright died the same year his novel was published.
His linguistic feat inspired Georges Perec, who wrote his own e-less French novel La Disparition in 1969.
Previously:
• Long French palindrome from an e-phobe
• In 2004, an author wrote a 233-page novel without using any verbs
