Tarot in Wonderland

Generation after generation has remained fascinated by Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland—one of the most broadly referenced literary works in English—and for good reason. Lewis Carroll’s captivating world simultaneously appears nonsensical and deeply symbolic, making it the perfect inspiration for a tarot deck. The Tarot in Wonderland draws on Carroll’s kaleidoscopic imagery, faithfully depicting characters and scenes as he described them. The richly colored, highly detailed illustrations stretch from edge to edge of each card. The images are so effectively evocative of Carroll’s world that spreading them out gives you the distinct impression that you might just fall in, like Alice going down the rabbit hole on the Fool card. The finish of the cards is smooth with enough shine to augment the colors without distracting from the pictures themselves.

Alice, the Cheshire Cat and the Queen of Hearts appear in numerous cards throughout the deck, providing coherence and storyline to support the reader in interpreting the cards. This deck would be perfectly usable even without a background knowledge of Carroll’s works, though—it comes with a full-color 345-page book containing full-page illustrations of each card along with a description and interpretation of each image. It also includes instructions for deck-specific spreads such as The Mad Tea Party, How to Play Croquet and Through the Looking Glass. The book and deck are packaged in a box with a magnetic cover for convenient storage. At $31.99 for the set, it’s a steal.