Origin of the Serif

If you're interested in beautiful lettering and its origins, this book's for you. Treat yourself or a friend to a small cultural treasure.

Great book -- this is a classic.

This insightful book by late Edward Catich provided his view to inscription of the Column of Trajan. This column has always been studied by calligraphers, typographers, artists. Its capital letters became the foundation of today's capital letters. Yet few people could see through misinformation and false theories accumulated throughout centries around the way it was first written. Rev. Catich as an expert of both calligraphy and stone-cutting, clarified these wrong ideas. He proved that this column's text was brush written. The major charastics (serifs, v-cuts, ...) of the Trajan letters had little to do with the limition of stone cutter's tools. In fact, these tools are very capable of reproducing calligraphy.Either you want to study calligraphy/typography, or you are interested in Roman history, you can read this book. As a computer engineer who speaks Chinese and lives in Taiwan, I found this book attracted me so much, I couldn't wait to buy all of his other books. When I was a kid, I had studied Chinese brush calligraphy, that's why I find it so easy to familarize with this Roman craft. I had also learned a bit about Chinese stamp making, which is basically cutting letters on a very small piece of stone. I knew what it was like to cut sone. That made Rev. Catich's theory very convincing to me.This book is totally enjoyable. I wish the publisher could publish a new edition. Despite of the minor flaws pointed by Edward Tufts in his (another masterpiece) _Visual Explainations_, there are still some insignificant mistakes wating to be corrected. The Latin scientific names on page 98 were not properly printed. The first name (genus) should be capitalized, but the second one (species) should always be lower cased. Therefore the plant _Phragmites Aegyptiaca_ should be printed as _Phragmites aegyptiaca_. Otherwise, this book is a masterpiece to me.This book is the same as another item "Origin of the Serif" in Amazon's database.

This insightful book by late Edward Catich provided his view to inscription of the Column of Trajan. This column has always been studied by calligraphers, typographers, artists. Its capital letters became the foundation of today's capital letters. Yet few people could see through misinformation and false theories accumulated throughout centries around the way it was first written. Rev. Catich as an expert of both calligraphy and stone-cutting, clarified these wrong ideas. He proved that this column's text was brush written. The major charastics (serifs, v-cuts, ...) of the Trajan letters had little to do with the limition of stone cutter's tools. In fact, these tools are very capable of reproducing calligraphy.Either you want to study calligraphy/typography, or you are interested in Roman history, you can read this book. As a computer engineer who speaks Chinese and lives in Taiwan, I found this book attracted me so much, I couldn't wait to buy all of his other books. When I was a kid, I had studied Chinese brush calligraphy, that's why I find it so easy to familarize with this Roman craft. I had also learned a bit about Chinese stamp making, which is basically cutting letters on a very small piece of stone. I knew what it was like to cut sone. That made Rev. Catich's theory very convincing to me.This book is totally enjoyable. I wish the publisher could publish a new edition. Despite of the minor flaws pointed by Edward Tufts in his (another masterpiece) _Visual Explainations_, there are still some insignificant mistakes wating to be corrected. The Latin scientific names on page 98 were not properly printed. The first name (genus) should be capitalized, but the second one (species) should always be lower cased. Therefore the plant _Phragmites Aegyptiaca_ should be printed as _Phragmites aegyptiaca_. Otherwise, this book is a masterpiece to me.

John Neal Books sells this book new at regular prices - no need to buy used at ripoff prices (as of 3/2015)! I agree with their desc: "The definitive work on the origin and development of the Roman inscriptional alphabet. Catich convincingly shows that the Trajan capitals were first brush-written. Includes Catich’s large brush capitals A-Z and instructions on making them. Full of illustrations. A superb reprint for all interested in Roman caps."

This is an amazing book. A real treasure if you are interested in lettering. So many other writers refer to Trajan lettering, so it is good to know why and where it comes from; this is the authorities source.Oxfam responded to my request to reduce their price as you can by the book new from the USA and it came really quickly.