Rider-Waite Premier tarot deck by Pamela Colman Smith

The premier boxed set. Deck, 38-page booklet, and spread sheet.

Smith's complete art. All 78 cards of the 1909 deck.

The layout sheet. 18 x 20 inches, spreads mapped to follow.

• Contents: 78-card Rider-Waite deck, 38-page instructional booklet, 18 x 20 in spread sheet
• Boxed set, approximately 4 3/4 x 2 3/4 x 1 inches
• Art: Pamela Colman Smith, 1909, under A. E. Waite's direction
• SKU: DRIDPRE

The premier is the edition built for the beginning that sticks: the fuller booklet gives card meanings room to breathe, and the printed spread sheet, positions mapped and labeled, removes the new reader's first stumble, where does the next card go, by answering it in ink. It is the set the tradition hands across birthdays and solstices, the tarot gift that arrives complete. Smith's art needs no introduction at this point in the shelf: the fully illustrated minors that made tarot readable by looking, credited to her plainly, as we always do. The cards predict nothing in any edition, as honest readers have always said; the premier just makes the learning gracious.

1. Lay the spread sheet flat and let it place the cards for you.
2. Work the booklet's spreads in order; the 38 pages pace a real start.
3. Box everything between sessions: the set stores itself.

• Rider-Waite Standard Edition: the plain deck for the second reader in the house.
• Quick and Easy Tarot: the meanings-on-the-cards learning deck beside it.
• Black Velveteen Bag: keeping once the box wears its years.

What makes it premier?

The kit: a fuller 38-page booklet and the 18 x 20 spread sheet with layouts mapped, the edition built to gift and to learn from.

Is the deck itself different?

No: Smith's complete 1909 art, the same 78 cards, dressed in the fuller set.

Is it good for beginners?

The best of the four editions for a first deck: the spread sheet answers the where-does-this-card-go question in ink.