The Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot: The Story of the World's Best-Known Deck

Where the deck came from: London, 1909

At the start of the twentieth century, London was full of interest in mysticism, symbolism and ritual. One center of that world was the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, a magical society founded in 1888 that taught a blend of astrology, Kabbalah, ritual and tarot. Arthur Edward Waite (1857-1942), an American-born writer and scholar of the occult, joined in the 1890s. He later led one of the groups that grew out of the Order's splits.

Waite wanted a tarot that expressed his own reading of the cards' symbolism while staying accessible. The publisher William Rider & Son issued the deck in 1909, and Waite's companion book, *The Pictorial Key to the Tarot*, followed in 1910. This is why you will see the deck called Rider-Waite: it carries the publisher's name and the name of the man who directed the symbolism. The third name, Smith, is the artist who gave the deck its look, and it is the one that was missing for most of the deck's history.

Pamela Colman Smith: the artist behind every card

Pamela Colman Smith (1878-1951) was born in London to American parents and spent parts of her childhood in Brooklyn and Jamaica. She trained at the Pratt Institute in New York and built a career as an illustrator, stage designer and storyteller. Her early books included a collection of Jamaican folktales, and she moved in theatrical circles around the actress Ellen Terry and the Lyceum Theatre. She also illustrated an edition of Bram Stoker's novel *The Lair of the White Worm*. In 1907, the photographer Alfred Stieglitz exhibited her paintings at his New York gallery. She was also active in the British women's suffrage movement, designing posters and other work for the cause.

Smith is known for painting in response to music, and her cards have a theatrical sense of staging: figures posed against clear backdrops, with gestures and props that are easy to read at a glance. She also belonged to the Golden Dawn, so she understood the symbolic tradition Waite wanted her to draw on. Her name does not appear on the cards themselves, only her monogram in the artwork. She is credited in Waite's book, but the deck was marketed under his name.

What made the deck different: scenes on every card

Before 1909, most tarot decks followed a pattern in which the 22 Major Arcana cards, such as The Fool and The Tower, carried pictures, while the numbered suit cards showed only repeated symbols. A Seven of Cups might simply show seven cups arranged on the card. Readers had to memorize meanings or rely on a printed guide.

The RWS deck gave each of the 40 numbered cards its own scene. This was a major shift. Instead of counting cups, you see a figure facing a cluster of cups holding visions, which suggests daydreams and too many choices. A few examples:

• Three of Swords: a heart pierced by three blades against a rainy sky, which most readers link to heartbreak or painful truth.
• Eight of Cups: a figure walking away from a neat stack of cups toward distant hills, which suggests leaving something behind in search of more.
• Two of Pentacles: a person juggling two coins while ships ride waves behind them, which points to balancing priorities.
• Ten of Pentacles: an elder, a family and dogs under an archway, which speaks of legacy and stability.

Scholars widely believe Smith drew inspiration from the Sola Busca tarot, a fifteenth-century Italian deck that is the only known early deck with scenes on its numbered cards. A copy was held in the British Museum. Whatever her exact sources, the result made tarot far easier to learn by sight, because you can read a card as a small story before you know any traditional meaning.

The renumbering of Strength and Justice

The RWS deck also made a small structural change that you will notice if you compare it with older decks. In the older Marseille-style tradition, Justice was card 8 and Strength was card 11. In the RWS deck, Strength is card 8 and Justice is card 11. The Golden Dawn had already made this swap, and it is usually explained by astrological correspondences the Order assigned to the cards: Strength was linked to Leo and Justice to Libra, and swapping the numbers fit that scheme.

Waite followed the Golden Dawn order, and the RWS numbering became standard for most English-language decks. If you use a Marseille-style deck, expect the two cards in the opposite positions. The meanings themselves are not affected, but numerology-minded readers should check which system their deck follows. Waite also gave Strength a gentle image, a woman calmly closing a lion's mouth, which shifted the card's emphasis toward patience and inner courage over force.

How one deck became the standard

The deck did not become dominant overnight. Rider printed it in 1909, and *The Pictorial Key* helped explain it to readers. But its greatest growth came later. In 1971, the publisher U.S. Games Systems, led by Stuart Kaplan, brought out an edition for the American market. The timing coincided with a surge of public interest in astrology, spirituality and alternative ideas, and the deck reached a large new audience.

Several things worked in its favor. The scenic cards made it beginner-friendly, and the symbolism was rich enough to reward long study. Because the illustrations tell stories, teachers could explain cards with images rather than lists of memorized phrases. Most modern English-language tarot books, courses and apps use RWS imagery and vocabulary, and the suits are usually named Wands, Cups, Swords and Pentacles, as in this deck. If you learn tarot on an RWS deck, almost every other mainstream deck will feel familiar.

Smith's late recognition

For much of the twentieth century, Smith was rarely named in connection with the deck, and the deck was simply called the Rider-Waite. She is commonly reported to have received a one-time payment for her work rather than ongoing royalties, so she did not share in the deck's later success. She converted to Catholicism in 1911, continued working as an illustrator for some time, and later lived in Cornwall, where she died in 1951 in relative obscurity and financial difficulty.

Recognition began to grow in the later twentieth century, as researchers and tarot historians such as Stuart Kaplan and Mary K. Greer published about her life and work. In 2009, on the deck's centennial, U.S. Games issued a commemorative edition that credited her name prominently, and the name Rider-Waite-Smith (or Smith-Waite) is now widely used by publishers and readers. Using the full name is a small way of acknowledging who actually drew the images.

The original artwork is in the public domain in the US

Because the deck was published in 1909, the original artwork is in the public domain in the United States. In practice, that means anyone may reproduce and adapt the original images there without asking permission. This is a major reason RWS imagery appears in so many places: printed decks, apps, art projects and tarot websites.

A few cautions are useful. Modern redrawings, new color schemes and restorations of the images can carry their own copyright, so it is the original 1909 artwork that is free to use, not every deck that looks like it. Copyright terms also differ between countries, so anyone planning a commercial project outside the US should check local rules. Many of the best-known modern decks, such as recolored RWS editions or decks that reimagine the scenes with new characters, are protected as original works even though they borrow the RWS structure.

How to use this history when you read

Knowing the story can make you a more confident reader. Because Smith painted every card as a scene, you can start by describing what you see. Is the figure moving or still? Looking toward something or away from it? Are they alone? Take the Eight of Cups: someone is walking away from cups that are carefully stacked, under a moon, toward mountains. Before you look up a meaning, those details already suggest themes of leaving, searching and letting go, and you can ask what that might mean for your question.

If you are choosing a first deck, an RWS or RWS-style deck is a sensible, widely supported choice. Keep in mind that tarot is for reflection and entertainment, and it works best as a prompt for your own thinking rather than a source of fixed answers. Your reading will rest on the symbols on the cards, the questions you bring and your own judgment.

Frequently asked questions