Smith-Waite vs Rider-Waite vs Rider-waite-Smith

If you’ve gotten into Tarot, I’m sure you’ve seen this deck or this deck by now. It is pretty universally agreed upon to be the standard for the modern tarot practice. There is an older version of Tarot that doesn’t include pictures for the majority of the minor arcana, but the Smith- Waite collaboration produced the first with the Smith-Waite Tarot more commonly referred to as the Rider- Waite Smith or RWS. “Smith” refers to Pamela Coleman Smith, the artist of the deck and a member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn with the author of the deck, “Waite”, Arthur Edward Waite. The “Rider” comes from the last name of the founder of the Rider publishing company, which is a part of Penguin House Publishing, which still prints Tarot decks to this day! Women were not given equal rights at that period of time, the early 1900’s, so the deck was called the “Rider-Waite” deck and did not include Smith’s contribution in the name at all. It wasn’t until 100 years later, that the Smith-Waite Centennial Edition was published and she finally got the representation she deservers.

Join the movement of modern readers in exclusively referring to it as the Smith-Waite deck to honor the work that Pamela Smith put into it’s creation, which has shaped the modern practice of tarot as we know it!