Tarot cards have a long and interesting history with literature. They are often associated with occult practices and the interpretation of the future. They are a rich source of information and inspiration for literature. In T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land Madame Sosostris uses “a wicked pack of cards” where she refers to the absence of the Hanged Man. Eliot later acknowledged that he created cards that were not in the familiar Rider-Waite-Smith deck and instead the fictional yet recognisable tarot cards serve to drive the narrative.
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- Rider-Waite-Smith deck
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- Art Nouveau in style
The Rider-Waite-Smith deck
The Rider-Waite-Smith deck was created in 1909. It was the bestselling deck of the twentieth century, and it’s probably the deck most people are familiar with. Different in style to the Italian Renaissance cards that came before them but equally as striking, the deck is Art Nouveau with floral motifs and bright colours. The cards were drawn by Pamela Colman Smith under the direction of Dr. Arthur Edward Waite. Dr. Waite was a scholar of occultism and he created the key to the tarot cards which was used to ‘decode’ the cards and their messages during a reading. Previously, the cards were known as the Rider-Waite deck, but Smith’s artistic style is what makes these cards so iconic and she has been recognised and acknowledged in recent years.
However, tarot cards are much older than the 1920s.
Trioffi Cards and more
Tarot cards have contested origins. Some believe that the cards as we would recognise them, originated in Italy as playing cards in the 1430s where 21 specially illustrated cards ‘trioffi’ (triumph cards) were added to the traditional playing cards with the four suits. They were then used to play a game similar to Bridge. Tarot cards then were associated with the wealthy and rich families in Italy commissioned sets to display their wealth – the most famous of these is the Visconti-Sforza deck, which you can take a look at here
The cards were hand-painted and often featured gold and silver with intricate Renaissance portraits. The Beinecke Rare Book Library at Yale University in the United States holds some particularly beautiful ones. You can take a look at the some of the cards they hold here.
According to the Bibliotheque National in Paris, Tarot cards spread across Europe in the fourteenth-century and in the seventeenth-century, German Cartier manufacturers abandoned the Italian imagery and symbolism of cups, swords, sticks and denarii and moved to French-signed cards with hearts, spades, tiles and clovers. On their website you can look at their collection which include animal imagery but the same bright colours as we see later in the Rider-Waite-Smith deck.
Tarot and Literature
Eliot isn’t the only writer to draw inspiration from tarot cards, tarot cards appear in literature in many guises. The historical novelist Kate Mosse’s Sepulchre (2007) uses tarot cards to link the two time periods in the novel together. Mosse’s novel opens with a tarot card reading and it immediately becomes clear that the present day and historical characters as linked by the use of the deck. The present day character, Meredith, sees her likeness on one of the tarot cards in the reading and this leads to the deck being gifted to her. The historical characters in the novel are drawn to stories of a deck of tarot cards hidden within a forest and the deck ties the two timelines together. 
Whilst Erin Morgenstern’s The Night Circus is set in a dream-like scape where tarot cards foreshadow the events of the book. Isobel, the circus’ fortune teller is the character most associated with the cards. Morgenstern’s interest in the tarot then led to her hand-drawing a set of her own called The Phantomwise Tarot, which you can purchase. Morgenstern’s tarot cards are loosely based on the Rider-Waite-Smith deck, however hers feature ballerina’s and cats and feel like tarot cards that have tumbled down the rabbit hole in Alice in Wonderland.
In Cathryn Kemp’s A Poisoner’s Tale tarot cards are used by the female characters as a way of supporting them – they offer readings alongside their herbal remedies and support at childbirth. As with the other stories listed above, tarot and femininity are enmeshed. Predominantly, it is female characters who are seen as the ‘keepers’ of the tarot and tarot cards are linked to witchcraft and otherworldliness.
Tarot cards for Kemp are part of a much darker backdrop in Renaissance Italy, they exist alongside poison and take on darker undertones than in other novels. Kemp’s novel is based on Giulia Tofana, known as the first female serial killer.
Kemp’s novel is a feminist retelling of Giulia’s story and it asks you to choose whether you believe her to be a murderer or a saviour of women. The tarot cards are not the main focus of the story, but their rich history and associations with witchcraft and the occult help them to set the scene for Giulia’s murders.
The Literary Emporium has even created a set of mini prints of some of Shakespeare’s most famous characters as tarot cards – the infamous Queen of the fairies, Titania, has become The Empress. Hamlet becomes the hanged man with the infamous “to be or not to be” quote, as the hanged man traditionally represents a moment of limbo and shows the man suspended in a moment. Hamlet himself is famous for his inability to act. Lady Macbeth becomes the Queen of Swords as she implores Macbeth to “screw his courage to the sticking place”. The six cards are created here as an art piece rather than as playing cards but they further demonstrate the relationship between the tarot and literature as complex and evolving.
Tarot cards then, are more than just an occult accessory for predicting the future. They offer us a key to create and unlock stories, they give us an insight into our own internal worlds and they work as prompt tools for literature. Their rich history, associated folklores and mysticism will continue to inspire for generations to come.
If you’re interested in the tarot you can find our recommended reading list here*:
Fiction
The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
Sepulchre by Kate Mosse
The Tarot Reader of Versailles by Anya Bergman
A Poisoner’s Tale by Cathryn Kemp
Non-Fiction
Wild Card by Jen Cownie and Fiona Lensvelt
The Original Rider Waite: The Pictorial Key to the Tarot: an Illustrated guide by Arthur Edward Waite
You Will be Able to Read Tarot by the End of this Book by Nicole Rallis
Adjacent reads
A Spell in the Wild by Alice Tarbuck
The White Queen by Phillipa Gregory
*You can find many of these in Nottingham Central Library or Inspire Libraries.