TAROT. – Arthur Edward WAITE. The Key to the Tarot, Being Fragments of a Secret Tradition under the Veil of Divination. London: William Rider & Son Limited, 1910. Second issue, ‘Pam A’, 12mo (124 x 56mm.) (Mild toning.) Original blue cloth with gilt ouroboros to upper cover, accompanied with 78 pictorial tarot cards designed by Pamela Colman-Smith. (Mild toning, three cards with pencil annotation), original maroon card box (rubbing to extremities, old tape repair). Note: rare. Acknowledged to be the most beautiful and symbolically rich of tarot card decks, the Rider-Waite pack has become the standard among tarot readers today. Pamela Colman-Smith had made illustration work for the suffragettes and worked with Alfred Stieglitz in New York who recognised the synaesthetic quality of her imagination. After meeting W.B. Yeats in 1901 she joined the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and became friends with Arthur Edward Waite. In 1909 Waite commissioned her to create a tarot deck that would appeal to both the esoteric and artistic communities they inhabited. Colman-Smith’s designs are especially memorable for the Minor Arcana (the ‘Pip’ cards) because prior to her designs the ‘Pip’ cards had tended to be simplified. It was also due to Waite giving detailed instructions for the Major Arcana, but only simple lists for the ‘Pip’ cards. Having this freedom, Colman-Smith’s inspired designs enriched the entire tarot and set a precedent that is widely imitated today. Following the first issue of the pack in 1909, the ‘Pam A’ edition was issued from April 1910 until about 1920, and the ‘Pam A’ is established as the oldest of this second issue.