lipograms

The novel is written as a lipogram and does not include words that contain the letter "e". Though self-published and little-noticed in its time, the book is a favorite of fans of constrained writing and is a sought-after rarity among some book collectors.

In Gadsby's introduction Wright says his primary difficulty was avoiding the "-ed" suffix for past-tense verbs. He focused on using verbs that do not take the -ed suffix and constructions with "do" (for instance "did walk" instead of "walked"). Scarcity of word options also drastically limited discussion involving quantity, pronouns, and many common words. Wright was unable to talk about any quantity between six and thirty. An article in the linguistic journal Word Ways said that 250 of the 500 most commonly used words in English were still available to Wright despite the omission of words with "e. Wright uses abbreviations on occasion, but only if the full form is similarly lipogrammatic, such as with "Dr.", and "P.S.". Wright also turns famous sayings into lipogrammatic form. Music can "calm a wild bosom", and Keats' "a thing of beauty is a joy forever" becomes "a charming thing is a joy always."