Skip to content
Tarot deck

Rider-Waite tarot: the 1909 deck and its 78 scenes

The Rider-Waite is the deck of drawn scenes: each card tells a situation you can read at a glance.

By Thomas Guilhot · updated

The essentials

Rider-Waite at a glance

For you

A deck of drawn scenes, where each card tells a situation you can describe before interpreting it.

Published
London, 1909
Drawings
Pamela Colman Smith
Illustrated cards
78 scenes
Reversals
Commonly read
Read more
Draw the cards Combine two cards

By Thomas Guilhot · updated

The deck

The 78 scenes

Seventy-eight cards: twenty-two Major Arcana and four suits of fourteen cards, each accompanied by a scene to describe.

Rider-Waite: drawings by Pamela Colman Smith, 1909, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. Images resized and compressed by Versana; Marseille Minor Arcana diagrams and card back drawn by Versana.

History

The key stages

In 1909, a London publisher issued a deck designed by Arthur Edward Waite and drawn by Pamela Colman Smith; the publisher’s name, Rider, is remembered alongside the designer’s.

  1. Origins

    The deck belongs to the line of tarots with numbered cards and four suits, whose structure it takes up.

  2. The deck takes shape

    In 1909, the London publisher William Rider & Son issued a deck designed by Arthur Edward Waite and drawn by Pamela Colman Smith, who went uncredited as an artist for a long time.

  3. Reading

    Pamela Colman Smith’s artwork, long left without credit, gives the deck its character of images to describe, card by card.

  4. Today

    Today, this deck serves many readers who read the cards through their images and symbols.

Reading

How to read it

  • The image

    Describe the scene above all: figures, setting, objects, sky, colors. Every card, minor cards included, offers one; meaning arises from the relationship between these elements and your question, not from a fixed list.

  • The number

    The number places the card within a progression, from ace to ten in a suit, from zero to twenty-one for the Major Arcana. It indicates a moment in the cycle, from the initial impulse to its end.

  • The position

    The place in the spread guides the reading: the same scene becomes a support, a difficulty, or a question depending on the position it occupies and the cards around it.

Draw the cards Tarot concepts

Frequently asked questions: Rider-Waite

Where does the Rider-Waite come from?

It was published in 1909 by the London publisher William Rider & Son, designed by Arthur Edward Waite and drawn by Pamela Colman Smith, who went uncredited as an artist for a long time. Its name combines that of the publisher and that of the designer.

How many cards are in the deck?

It has 78 cards in all: 22 Major Arcana and 56 minor cards. The latter form four suits, each made up of ten numbered cards and four court cards: page, knight, queen, and king.

How does it differ from the other deck?

The Rider-Waite illustrates every card with a drawn scene, while the Marseille deck leaves its minor cards as patterns. One invites you to describe images, the other to count and observe the suits, while the Major Arcana stay close in principle.