Lipogram

(from λιπογράμματος, “wanting a letter”). A name given to any literary work which is characterized by the exclusion of some particular letters of the alphabet. The first known writer of lipograms was the Greek poet Lasus (about B.C. 500). Tryphiodorus of Egypt, a writer of the same period, is said to have written an Odyssey in twenty-four books, from each of which in succession one of the letters of the Greek alphabet was excluded. A curious instance in Latin is found in the prose history (De Aetatibus Mundi) of the Christian writer Fulgentius (q.v.). In modern times this sort of fooling is found principally in Spanish literature—an inheritance, perhaps, from Rome. Lope de Vega wrote five novels from each of which one of the vowels is carefully excluded. See Wheatley, Anagrams (1862).