Rider-Waite Tarot Deck - Publication

Publication

The cards were originally published in December 1909 by the publisher William Rider & Son of London. The following year, a small guide by A.E. Waite entitled The Key to the Tarot was bundled with the cards, providing an overview of the traditions and history behind the cards, criticism of various interpretations, and extensive descriptions of their symbols. The year after that, a revised version, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot, was issued that featured black-and-white plates of all 78 of Smith's cards.

Although the cards' crisp drawings are widely admired, the crude printing of colours in the original edition detracts from their effect. Several later versions of this deck, such as the Universal Waite deck, copy the Smith line drawings with minor changes and add more sophisticated coloring.

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