Ernest Vincent Wright (1871–1939) was an American writer whose enduring reputation rests upon a singular and extraordinary lipogrammatic achievement. Writing in the early twentieth century, Wright is remembered almost exclusively for this final literary contribution, which pushed the boundaries of constrained writing to its absolute limits.
His defining work, the 1939 novel Gadsby, is a narrative spanning approximately 50,000 words. The book is celebrated for its strict adherence to a lipogrammatic constraint, wherein Wright sought to compose the entire story without once utilizing the letter "E"—the most frequently occurring letter in the English language. This self-imposed restriction required immense linguistic ingenuity, though the final published text famously contains four unintentional instances of the letter. Wright passed away the same year the novel was published, leaving behind a unique monument of experimental prose.
