When most people picture a tarot card, they're picturing the Rider-Waite deck — more accurately the Rider-Waite-Smith. First published in London in 1909, it became the most influential tarot deck in the world and set the visual template that the great majority of modern decks still follow. It uses the Latin suit system — Wands, Cups, Swords, and Pentacles — which is why it sometimes turns up under the "Latin tarot" label.
Who made it
The deck was the work of two members of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, the influential British occult society. Arthur Edward (A.E.) Waite, a scholar and occultist, conceived and directed the project and supplied its esoteric framework. Pamela Colman Smith, an artist also connected to the Golden Dawn, illustrated all 78 cards. It was published by William Rider & Son of London — which is where the "Rider" in the name comes from.
For most of the last century the deck was credited only to its publisher and its author — "Rider" and "Waite" — which quietly erased the woman who actually drew every image. Modern usage corrects that: you'll increasingly see it called the Rider-Waite-Smith or Waite-Smith deck, and Smith's initials appear as a small monogram on the cards themselves.
What made it revolutionary
Earlier tarot decks illustrated only the 22 Major Arcana in detail. Their Minor Arcana — the numbered suit cards — looked like ornate playing cards: four cups, seven swords, and so on, with no scene to interpret. Smith's great innovation, under Waite's direction, was to give every Minor card a full narrative illustration — a figure, a setting, a small story. That single change made the Minors readable by picture rather than by memorized correspondence, which put tarot reading within reach of people who weren't trained occultists. It is the main reason the deck spread as widely as it did.
The structure of the deck
The Rider-Waite-Smith follows the standard 78-card tarot structure:
- 22 Major Arcana — the trump cards, from the Fool (0) through the World (21), marking the big archetypal themes of a reading.
- 56 Minor Arcana — four Latin suits (Wands, Cups, Swords, Pentacles), each running Ace through Ten plus four court cards (Page, Knight, Queen, King), covering the everyday, situational layer.
Waite mapped the deck onto the Golden Dawn's system of esoteric correspondences, while Smith brought a Symbolist artist's eye to the imagery — the combination of careful occult structure and genuinely evocative art is what gave the deck its staying power.
Pamela Colman Smith, the artist behind the images
Smith deserves more than a footnote. Born in 1878 to American parents and raised partly in England and Jamaica, she trained at the Pratt Institute, worked in theatrical design, and moved in the same literary and occult circles as W.B. Yeats and the Golden Dawn. She described experiencing music as color and form — a synesthetic sensibility that shows in how vivid and stage-like her tarot scenes feel. For the deck she illustrated all 78 cards, reportedly for a flat fee and little ongoing recognition, and she died in 1951 in relative obscurity, her contribution folded into a publisher's name. The modern push to call the deck "Rider-Waite-Smith" is partly a correction of that record: the images everyone associates with tarot are hers.
Why beginners still start here
The deck's accessibility is also why it remains the standard teaching tool. Because every card carries a scene, a newcomer can often read meaning from the picture before memorizing a single keyword — the Three of Swords (a heart pierced by three blades) reads as heartbreak almost on sight. Nearly every modern guide, course, and meaning-list is written around these images, so learning on a Rider-Waite-style deck means the rest of the craft's resources line up with what's in your hands.
Its legacy
More than a century on, the Rider-Waite-Smith is the reference point for the entire craft. Countless modern decks are described as "Rider-Waite-based," meaning they keep Smith's scene-for-every-card approach and her broad compositions while restyling the art. When a beginner is told to "learn on a Rider-Waite," it's because nearly every guide, course, and meaning-list is written around these images. Few works of early-20th-century occult publishing have had anything like its reach.
FAQs
Who created the Rider-Waite tarot? A.E. Waite designed and directed it; Pamela Colman Smith illustrated all 78 cards. It was published by William Rider & Son in 1909.
Why is it now called the Rider-Waite-Smith deck? To credit the artist, Pamela Colman Smith, whose name was left out of the traditional "Rider-Waite" title even though she drew every card.
What suits does the Rider-Waite use? The Latin tarot suits: Wands, Cups, Swords, and Pentacles — 56 Minor Arcana cards plus 22 Major Arcana, for 78 total.
Why was the deck so influential? It was the first widely published deck to fully illustrate the Minor Arcana with scenes, making tarot readable by image and accessible far beyond trained occultists.
Related articles
- Tarot card meanings list
- How to use playing cards for tarot
- Tarot card layouts
- Aesthetic tarot cards
About this article
Written by the AstrologyBay Editorial Team. The history, dates, and attributions here are matters of record and are cited; tarot itself we describe as a divination tradition and interest topic, not a predictive science.
Sources
(Historical type — cite. Verify/insert at review.)
- A reference for the 1909 publication by William Rider & Son and the Waite–Smith collaboration.
- Biographies of A.E. Waite and Pamela Colman Smith and their Golden Dawn connection.