1909 · 78 cards · William Rider & Son
Rider–Waite–Smith tarot deck
The Rider–Waite–Smith deck was published in 1909: designed by Arthur Edward Waite, drawn by Pamela Colman Smith, 78 cards. It was the first widely published deck to give every minor arcana card a full scene instead of a bare count of suit symbols. That single decision is why the minors can be read at all by a beginner, and why nearly every modern deck copies its imagery.
Who actually drew it
Pamela Colman Smith drew all 78 cards for a flat fee and no royalties. For most of the century the deck was named after Rider and Waite alone; the S was added to the name only after her contribution was reassessed. The only earlier deck with a scene on every card, the Sola Busca of the 1490s, survived as a rarity, and Smith is thought to have seen it in photographs at the British Museum.
What Waite changed
Waite made deliberate breaks with the older Marseille pattern. He swapped the numbers of Strength and Justice, making Strength 8 and Justice 11 to fit the Golden Dawn's astrological order; he turned the Lovers into Adam and Eve beneath an angel instead of a man choosing between two women; he renamed coins as pentacles; and above all he asked Smith to draw a scene on every minor card, which the Marseille deck had never done.
Copyright
Published in 1909, the original deck has long been in the public domain in the United States. In the UK and EU copyright runs for 70 years after the artist's death, so Pamela Colman Smith's artwork became free to reproduce there only on January 1, 2022 — though the images have been reprinted and cloned for decades.
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Where it sits among the others
| Deck | Published | Structure |
|---|---|---|
| Tarot de Marseille | 1650 | 78 cards, 22 major and 56 minor |
| Rider–Waite–Smith | 1909 | 78 cards, 22 major and 56 minor |
| Thoth | 1969 | 78 cards, 22 major and 56 minor |
| Dalí Universal Tarot | 1984 | 78 cards, 22 major and 56 minor |
| DruidCraft | 2004 | 78 cards, 22 major and 56 minor |
| The Wild Unknown | 2012 | 78 cards, 22 major and 56 minor |
Rider–Waite–Smith is 117 years old; 1 of the other 5 decks here is older, 4 are younger.
The cards themselves
Our card meanings follow this deck’s structure, because nearly every modern guide does. All 78 are drawn in our own line style rather than reproduced.
Cite this page
AstroHot. “Rider–Waite–Smith Tarot: The 1909 Deck Everyone Copies.” Accessed October 29, 2026. https://astrohot.com/tarot/decks/rider-waite/
For Wikipedia
{{cite web |title=Rider–Waite–Smith Tarot: The 1909 Deck Everyone Copies |url=https://astrohot.com/tarot/decks/rider-waite/ |website=AstroHot |access-date=2026-10-29}}