– Customer review on 06/11/2011

A comment on the 2007 review, Pamela Coleman Smith WAS paid for her artwork, but in her words, in a letter full of exclamation marks and dated November 19 1909, she says “I’ve just finished a big job for very little cash! a set of designs for a pack of Tarot cards 80 designs”. For a full appreciation of her incredible contribution to what has become probably the single most influential tarot deck of all time, I'd recommend Stuart R Kaplan's “The Artwork and Times of Pamela Coleman Smith”, one of many items in The Pamela Coleman Smith Commemorative Set. The letter in which she mentions the artwork for this deck and many other written and artistic items are all found in this commemorative set.

And a comment on the second "review": it's hardly fair to give a one star rating to the deck when it's fishpond that the writer has an issue with! More appropriate in such cases, is to send them an email as - in my experience - they always respond, and very promptly.

As for a star rating for this deck. I've owned mine for years, and it's never been one I liked so, a few years ago, I would have probably rated it three stars, but since reading Stuart Kaplan's book, I'm giving it four stars. Minus one star for the rigidly patriarchal images of The Emperor and The Hierophant and the very negative Christian images of Death, The Devil and Judgement, all in the Major Arcana, and from what I've read all strongly directed by Arthur Waite. Apparently, he was considerably less interested in the Minor Arcana cards and left young Pamela pretty much to her own devices here! Then paid her very little for what was clearly a mammoth undertaking, so the four stars are for her contribution!

– Customer review on 15/10/2007

Easily the most recognisable of the Tarot decks this deck is a must have for serious students of the history of Tarot.

If you want to learn the Tarot as an art then there are far prettier and more intuitive decks out there. This set tends to look rather drab in a sixties cartoon book kind of way. If you want to learn some magick history then this card set and the accompanying book present some worthwhile clues.

Pamela Colman Smith was the artist and was not paid for the work. She received direction from Arthur Edward Waite of Golden Dawn fame. So why is it called the Rider-Waite Deck? Rider were the original publishers and the association has resulted in the long standing naming convention.

Paradoxically Arther Waite in the accompanying book suggests that historically the lesser arcana (our modern day card pack) was traditionally used for fortune telling. But only hints at the original purpose of the major arcana, seeming to me to suggest that it was used seperately from the minors for much longer as a memory/meditation tool associated with the Kabbalah.

If i could i would give it two ratings one as a Tarot Pack (2/5), the other in conjunction with the book as an insight into 19th/20th century mystic schooling (4/5). I fear many will find the message in the accompanying book lacking in serious substance and miss the subtlety of the hints given. Yet a student of Kabbalah will not go astray by adopting this set as his/her first tarot deck.