The Novel Written Without Using E

Imagine writing an entire 50,000-word book while intentionally avoiding the most common letter in the English language. This bizarre feat resulted in a story that completely omits the letter E from start to finish.

Ernest Vincent Wright achieved this difficult task by writing Gadsby, a novel about a city coming back to life. Because E is the most frequently used letter in English, he could not use simple words like the, he, she, or there. To overcome this hurdle, he had to use creative phrasing and strictly avoid common verbs and pronouns. It remains one of the most extreme examples of a lipogram ever attempted in literature.