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Wednesday, May 4, 2005
Wright's Gadsby Available Online
In 1939,
Ern
est Vinc
ent Wright publish
ed
Gadsby, a nov
el of mor
e than 50,000 words which n
ev
er onc
e us
es th
e l
ett
er "
e". This most curious volum
e has b
ecom
e som
ewhat of a coll
ector's it
em--us
ed copi
es on
ABE and
Amazon s
eem to start at around USD85 and go up from th
er
e.
Fortunat
ely, an
online edition is now availabl
e, including th
e author's d
elighful introduction (which
does us
e th
e l
ett
er "
e") which
explains his strong construction of th
e constraint, which caus
ed him to r
ej
ect abbr
eviations such as "Mr." and "Mrs." which would, if
expand
ed or spok
en, us
e th
e l
ett
er "
e". Th
e fact that most past t
ens
es in
English
end in "-
ed" is particularly chall
enging, as w
ell as th
e fact that
ev
ery num
eral gr
eat
er than six and l
ess than thirty is
exclud
ed, as w
ell as most common pronouns.
And, of cours
e, th
e story must
end with
"Finis" coronat opus, as "Th
e End" is doubly right out!
Posted at
00:10