The Rider–Waite–Smith Deck: How a 1909 Pack Became the Default

For English speakers, the image of tarot is usually the Rider–Waite–Smith deck. Its look comes from an artist whose name was long left off the box.

Publication

The Rider–Waite Tarot was first published by William Rider & Son of London in 1909. It was designed to the instructions of the writer and mystic A. E. Waite and illustrated by Pamela Colman Smith. Both were members of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn.

Many names for one deck

It is known as the Rider–Waite, the Rider Tarot, the Waite–Smith or the Rider–Waite–Smith deck. The longer names give credit to Smith, whose drawings define the deck's look; this site uses Rider–Waite–Smith.

What was new

• Every Minor Arcana card carries an allegorical scene, where earlier decks, with rare exceptions, showed only suit symbols on the pip cards.
• Some Christian imagery was removed from certain cards and added to others.
• The symbolism drew on the nineteenth-century occultist Eliphas Levi and on the teachings of the Golden Dawn.

Printings

The first printing, in December 1909, was very limited and had card backs with a roses-and-lilies pattern. A larger printing followed in March 1910, on better card stock with a back design collectors call "cracked mud". Rider continued to publish editions until 1939, and again in the 1970s.

The artist

Pamela Colman Smith was a British artist, illustrator, writer and publisher. Besides the tarot, she illustrated more than twenty books, wrote two collections of Jamaican folklore and ran the Green Sheaf Press, a small press focused on women writers. Looking at the deck as her body of work, rather than as an instrument, is one of the most rewarding ways to approach it.

Revised 2026-10-22