Gadsby

by Ernest Vincent Wright

Gadsby is a novel of about fifty thousand words written without a single use of the letter E, published by Ernest Vincent Wright in 1939, the year he died. The story follows John Gadsby, a middle-aged citizen of Branton Hills, who rallies the town's young people into an Organization of Youth and transforms a dull little community into a thriving city with parks, a hospital, a zoo and an airport, eventually becoming its mayor. Wright explains in his introduction that he tied down the E key of his typewriter and that the constraint forced him into odd turns of phrase, since he could not write "the," "he" or "she." The result is a curiosity of American letters. The full text is available to read online in your browser on Vinteuil, and the first chapter is free.