The Tarot of A. E. Waite and P. Colman Smith

Arthur E. Waite, a modern mystic, created together with Pamela Colman Smith the most influential Tarot deck. With a selection of more than 800 images and texts, the pioneer of Tarot history, Johannes Fiebig contextualizes this unique deck. The kit includes facsimiles of the 1910 original edition of the cards and of A. E. Waite’s Key to the Tarot. 

The Story of the World's Most Popular Tarot

A unique edition of bright texts, brilliant images, and historic reprints, this kit provides everything that both beginners and advanced Tarot users might need and want to read cards for themselves and to study and experience this cultural gem in all its beauty and significance.

The valuable collector’s box includes a complete deck of the Waite Smith Tarot cards and Waite’s famous companion book The Key to the Tarot. In this illustrated book, with texts and images compiled by Johannes Fiebig, the Tarot cards become psychological mirrors and signposts leading toward new answers and personal solutions. The fact that this works well can be attributed to certain advantages inherent to the Waite-Smith cards, and these points are illuminated in an essay by Rachel Pollack.

All 78 cards are presented individually and in detail. The explanatory texts provide several dimensions and levels of interpretation, including concrete practical tips. Further, the book offers a new feature: the quick check. This presents a concise hint regarding the meaning of each card in each possible position of all the spread patterns featured in the book.

When Arthur E. Waite and Pamela Colman Smith developed their Tarot deck in London in 1909, nobody could have predicted that it would have an overwhelming renaissance starting around 60 years later. What were the lives, works, and passions of these creators like? Pamela Colman Smith and Arthur E. Waite are brought vividly back to life in essays by Mary K. Greer and Robert A. Gilbert.

The authors

Johannes Fiebig is one of the most successful authors in the field of Tarot and a leading expert in the psychological interpretation of symbols. He published his first book in 1984. Since then, his books have sold over 2 million copies, appearing in more than a dozen languages. In 1989, he co-founded and co-owned Königsfurt publishing house, which later became the publishing houses Königsfurt-Urania and AGM-Urania, of which he was managing director until 2018. Since then, he has been an independent writer based in Kiel.

Mary K. Greer is one of the world’s leading Tarot scholars and experts, famous by her outstanding, both exciting and useful Tarot blog. She is an author, teacher, and professional tarot consultant known for her innovative teaching techniques. With an M.A. in English Literature, she taught Tarot in colleges for fifteen years. Since the 1980s and her book Tarot for Your Self (1984), Mary belongs to the pioneers of the tarot as self-experience and as a tool of personal transformation and empowerment. She is a co-author of Pamela Colman Smith: The Untold Story (2018). She lives in California, USA. 

Rachel Pollack has published 46 books, including several on the Tarot, which are known the world over. Her books have been translated into 15 languages, and she has taught and lectured on four continents. A visual artist, she created the Shining Tribe Tarot and, in collaboration with Robert M. Place, the Raziel Tarot and the Burning Serpent Oracle. Rachel Pollack lived in Rhinebeck, New York (USA), where she died in 2023.

Robert A. Gilbert studied philosophy and psychology at the University of Bristol and obtained a doctorate from the University of London for his thesis on Victorian esoteric literature. A prolific author, he is also an editor in the field of Western esotericism, specializing in the life and work of Arthur E. Waite and the history of the Order of the Golden Dawn. He lives in Somerset, England.

The Tarot of A. E. Waite and P. Colman SmithHardcover, deck with 78 cards and facsimile in a clamshell, 23 x 28.7 cm, 3 kg, 444 pages