Tom Kemp’s book would be unthinkable without the work of Johnston and Catich. He shares with Johnston a penetrating search into the origins of formal writing, and with Catich both the same tool - the chisel-edged brush - and the Trajan inscription. But Kemp goes far beyond Johnston and Catich in his description of technical details. In fact there has been no book that explains in such precise - practically obsessive - detail, every grip of the brush and every detail of its handling, with clear drawings and text. (The flow of writing and the preparation for it are however rather briefly covered.)

The difference to Catich is that Kemp is far less concerned with how the Trajan inscription was created (or might have been created) as with the finished letters as they appear. Catich’s theory has been continually discussed since the publication of his second book, The Origin of the Serif, and seems now to be universally recognized. He contends that the letters were laid out with a broad brush by the same person who subsequently chiselled them. The form of certain details - connecting strokes for example - was thus not fully defined in the writing, but left to be completed by the chisel. Kemp has his doubts about this part of the theory; he shows that it is quite possible to handle the brush in such a way as to achieve the finished forms of the Trajan inscription without having to leave too much to interpretation by the chisel. This means of course that the brush must be held and moved at all possible angles, and even turned in the course of a stroke. Specific instructions are given in the chapters "Writing Trajan Letters" and "Trajan Letters in Detail".

For example, see the spread where the letter D is depicted. Anyone who is used to writing with the broad-edged pen will be amazed by what is possible with a fully mobile brush. Father Catich’s advice on brush handling already make the distinction, but Kemp, as I have said, goes much further.

If Kemp has doubts about Catich’s theory - completion of the written form via the chisel - so can one equally have doubts about Kemp’s theory. This would only be logical if the lettercutter was not the same person as the writer, and therefore had to follow the prewritten form in every detail. If the writer and the cutter were one however, it is difficult to see why he would have to write so exactly.

But Kemp is a writer (Calligrapher), and his concern is not historical accuracy on the subject of how the Trajan letters were actually produced; he is only interested in being able to write with a brush in such a way as to produce the forms as they are.

The last chapter, "The Next Step", is about the various possibilities for using the techniques learned from the Trajan inscription: condensing and expanding letters, extending or reducing them with a constant brush width, and looking for a minuscule to match the Trajan caps. The chapter throws up interesting questions but is a bit sketchy; Tom Kemp does not seem to have complete faith himself in the further practical possibilities. At their most convincing, these lines are reminiscent—not in the brush handling, but in the tightness and moderate angle—of Scriptura Actuaria. And the practical worth of this labour of dedication and diligence? In the US, and above all in England, where there is still a thriving tradition of lettering, which has either never existed in other places or has long since disappeared, calligraphers and lettercutters still find enough work. It is entirely possible that this work could be of practical relevance to them. It is also possible that it could be of use in the teaching of lettering. But beyond that, it is a book which is valuable just for what it is, and for throwing some new light on the subjects of "writing with the broad brush" and "the inscription on the base of the Trajan column".