The Rider Waite Smith Tarot deck is probably the most popular and well-known of all the Tarot decks available today. The name comes from William RIDER & Son, the original publishers, Arthur Edward WAITE, the academic and mystic who commissioned the creation of this deck, and Pamela Colman SMITH, the talented but often overlooked artist who drew the Rider-Waite images ( as it is often known) Tarot deck. Waite and Smith were members of the Order of the Golden Dawn, a famous but short-lived occult group of the 19th century.

The RWS Tarot deck was published in 1909 and was the first widely available deck with illustrated Minor Arcana cards. The 56 cards of the Minor Arcana, also known as “nuggets”, now had a great deal of symbolism represented in the illustrations, as did the 22 cards of the Major Arcana. Until then, the numbered Minor Arcana cards in a Tarot deck showed only 4 cups, or 6 wands, or 8 swords. The RWS Tarot with its illustrated “nuggets”, along with the evocative images of the Major Arcana finally revolutionized the world of Tarot. When Waite designed his Tarot deck, he kept the basic sequence of the cards, although he changed the numbering of the Force and Justice cards in the Major Arcana. There is some discussion as to who actually designed the Minor Arcana cards – did Waite conceive them and give Smith complete instructions, or did he just share his ideas with him and allow him a bit of freedom with his artistic talents to create the images? Each card bears the monogram of Pamela Colman Smith, usually in one of the lower corners.

Tragically, the original printing plates were destroyed in the London bombing and publication came to an end. In 1971, US Games inc. began publishing a copyrighted facsimile version of the deck.

These days there are many, many decks that follow the basic template of the RWS Tarot deck. There are versions of RWS that have been recolored but retain the original line drawings. The redrawn versions generally have the same basic shapes and configurations on the cards with similar symbolism. An RWS-type deck is generally recommended for beginners, as basic visual scenes can be more easily associated with keywords to better remember and understand the meanings of each card. However, there are also many seasoned readers whose favorite reading platform is an RWS or a variant. Most beginner and beginner books use illustrations from the RWS deck for learning purposes.

One thing is for sure, if Arthur Edward Waite and Pamela Colman Smith hadn’t collaborated and created the RWS Tarot deck, the Tarot decks would be quite different than what we are used to today.