The Rider-Waite tarot deck, originally published in 1909, is widely considered the most popular tarot deck for tarot card reading. The cards were drawn by illustrator Pamela Colman Smith from the instructions of academic and mystic A. E. Waite and were originally published by the Rider Company. The deck has been published in numerous editions and inspired a wide array of variants and imitations. It is estimated that over 100 million copies of the deck have been published in more than 20 countries.