Gadsby – a 50,000 Word Story
The most commonly occurring letter in English is the letter e, followed I think by a and t or possibly t then a. Writing anything major, i.e. a novel of some 50,000 words without using the letter e is I imagine an arduous (see below!) but not impossible task as the author, one Ernest Vincent Wright has demonstrated.
Strictly you’d describe this as an exercise in lipogramy. According to Wikipedia Every word in Gadsby was properly spelled and all narration was grammatically correct. However, the stress of writing such a novel was apparently too much for Wright, who died at the age of 66 on the day Gadsby was published.
Posted: October 19th, 2007 under literature, novel, words.
Tags: letter e, literature, words
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