Ernest Vincent Wright

Ernest Vincent Wright (March 26, 1871 – October 6, 1939) was an American writer best known for his 1939 novel Gadsby, a 50,000-word lipogrammatic work which avoids the letter "E" (except for four unintentional instances).

Wright was born in Boston, Massachusetts, to Henry Estes Wright, a veteran of the Civil War, and Clara Adelaide Wright. According to the 1900 Census, he had been working as a dancing instructor. Then, according to the Census ten years later, he was a salesman in the typewriting industry. In July 1917, Wright was enlisted and drafted to work for the navy, before being discharged in 1919/1921.

During the 1920's, he had worked as a musician. Eventually, he worked as a newspaper reporter and editor before turning to fiction. However his work was largely ignored by critics and publishers during his lifetime.

In October 1930, Wright wrote a letter to The Evening Independent newspaper boasting about how he had written a fine lipogrammatic work and asked if the paper would host a lipogram competition, with a prize of $250 awarded to the winner. The paper turned Wright down as they said it was "hardly worth the spending $250 to be offered as the capital prize" and that there "probably would have been few entries".^[1]

In 1936, Wright completed a draft of Gadsby during a nearly six-month stay at the National Military Home in California. Unable to secure a publisher, he self-published the novel.^[2] Copies of Gadsby became extremely rare, with some selling for thousands of dollars.

Wright previously authored several other works, including The Wonderful Fairies of the Sun (1896), The Fairies That Run the World and How They Do It (1903), and Thoughts and Reveries of an American Bluejacket (1918). His humorous poem, "When Father Carves the Duck," appears in some anthologies.^[3]

• The Wonderful Fairies of the Sun (1896)
• The Fairies That Run the World and How They Do It (1903)
• Thoughts and Reveries of an American Bluejacket (1918)
• Gadsby (1939)
• "When Father Carves the Duck" (poem)

• Burton, Walt (March 25, 1937), "Fifty Thousand Words Minus", Oshkosh Daily Northwestern, p. 20, Publication of a composition without a common fifth symbol and acclaim of it as most odd got him to thinking. And so Wright got to it writing .... It was difficult at first. Most nouns would not do. 'Just try it,' Wright said, grinning and pulling at gray hairs of his trim, triangular growth on his chin. Four months and 30 days it took to do it all .... Writing this way is a good thing for an insomnia victim to try.
• Sturrock, John (1999), The Word from Paris: Essays on Modern French Thinkers and Writers, Verso, ISBN 978-1-85984-163-1

• Works by Ernest Vincent Wright at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)