Gadsby: A Story of Over 50,000 Words Without Using the Letter "e

The most ambitious lipogram in English history. Ernest Vincent Wright spent five years writing 50,000 words without using the letter E - the most common letter in the language. Every sentence required impossible choices. No "the," "be," "were," "she," "he," "they," or "their." The result reads as a peculiar, slightly stilted period piece about John Gadsby, a fifty-year-old man who rallies the young people of decaying Branton Hills to transform their stagnant town of 2,000 into a thriving city of 60,000. Against opposition, they form an Organization of Youth, building civic spirit and improving living standards through two decades that span from 1906 through the Harding administration. The story feels both naive and sincere - small-town American idealism rendered in a voice that sounds like no other novel in existence. It's a curiosity, certainly. But it's also a genuine achievement: a book that could only have been written by someone stubborn enough to spend half a decade refusing the most common letter in English, and passionate enough to make it sing.