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Pixie
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Expected 12 Mar 26“Pixie”. I like it. “Pixie Pamela”. It's a good name for sometimes tiny and invisible. Other times bouncing up to the ceiling to look down on everyone.
It's the turn of the twentieth century and Pamela 'Pixie' Colman Smith is a young woman of stark plucky yet naïve, artistically gifted despite lacking classical training, fascinated by the esoteric but sceptical of the world around her.
After the deaths of her beloved mother and her troubled but well-intentioned father, Pixie finds herself in the complex, political world of fin-de-siècle art, trying to get her stunning work seen and to forge a name and a path for herself in life. Across Jamaica, Devon, London and Brooklyn, Pixie is a novel of epic proportions, a tale of the twists and turns, séances and secrets, successes and devastation, of one young woman's talent, grit and determination.
In Pixie, Whitbread and Orange Prize-shortlisted author Jill Dawson renders the real-life figure of Pamela 'Pixie' Colman Smith, artist, publisher and illustrator of the still-iconic Rider–Waite–Smith tarot deck, in arrestingly vivid detail, breathing life into a story that is instantly knowable, but has, until now, eluded popular imagination.
It's the turn of the twentieth century and Pamela 'Pixie' Colman Smith is a young woman of stark plucky yet naïve, artistically gifted despite lacking classical training, fascinated by the esoteric but sceptical of the world around her.
After the deaths of her beloved mother and her troubled but well-intentioned father, Pixie finds herself in the complex, political world of fin-de-siècle art, trying to get her stunning work seen and to forge a name and a path for herself in life. Across Jamaica, Devon, London and Brooklyn, Pixie is a novel of epic proportions, a tale of the twists and turns, séances and secrets, successes and devastation, of one young woman's talent, grit and determination.
In Pixie, Whitbread and Orange Prize-shortlisted author Jill Dawson renders the real-life figure of Pamela 'Pixie' Colman Smith, artist, publisher and illustrator of the still-iconic Rider–Waite–Smith tarot deck, in arrestingly vivid detail, breathing life into a story that is instantly knowable, but has, until now, eluded popular imagination.
388 pages, Kindle Edition
Expected publication March 12, 2026
215 people want to read
About the author
Jill Dawson
42 books100 followersJill Dawson was born in Durham and grew up in Staffordshire, Essex and Yorkshire. She read American Studies at the University of Nottingham, then took a series of short-term jobs in London before studying for an MA in Writing at Sheffield Hallam University. In 1997 she was the British Council Writing Fellow at Amherst College, Massachussets.
Her writing life began as a poet, her poems being published in a variety of small press magazines, and in one pamphlet collection, White Fish with Painted Nails (1990). She won an Eric Gregory Award for her poetry in 1992.
She edited several books for Virago, including The Virago Book of Wicked Verse (1992) and The Virago Book of Love Letters (1994). She has also edited a collection of short stories, School Tales: Stories by Young Women (1990), and with co-editor Margo Daly, Wild Ways: New Stories about Women on the Road (1998) and Gas and Air: Tales of Pregnancy and Birth (2002). She is the author of one book of non-fiction for teenagers, How Do I Look? (1991), which deals with the subject of self-esteem.
Jill Dawson is the author of five novels: Trick of the Light (1996); Magpie (1998), for which she won a London Arts Board New Writers Award; Fred and Edie (2000); Wild Boy (2003); and most recently, Watch Me Disappear (2006). Fred and Edie is based on the historic murder trial of Thompson and Bywaters, and was shortlisted for the 2000 Whitbread Novel Award and the 2001 Orange Prize for Fiction.
Her next novel, The Great Lover, is due for publication in early 2009.
Jill Dawson has taught Creative Writing for many years and was recently the Creative Writing Fellow at the University of East Anglia. She lives with her family in the Cambridgeshire Fens.
Her writing life began as a poet, her poems being published in a variety of small press magazines, and in one pamphlet collection, White Fish with Painted Nails (1990). She won an Eric Gregory Award for her poetry in 1992.
She edited several books for Virago, including The Virago Book of Wicked Verse (1992) and The Virago Book of Love Letters (1994). She has also edited a collection of short stories, School Tales: Stories by Young Women (1990), and with co-editor Margo Daly, Wild Ways: New Stories about Women on the Road (1998) and Gas and Air: Tales of Pregnancy and Birth (2002). She is the author of one book of non-fiction for teenagers, How Do I Look? (1991), which deals with the subject of self-esteem.
Jill Dawson is the author of five novels: Trick of the Light (1996); Magpie (1998), for which she won a London Arts Board New Writers Award; Fred and Edie (2000); Wild Boy (2003); and most recently, Watch Me Disappear (2006). Fred and Edie is based on the historic murder trial of Thompson and Bywaters, and was shortlisted for the 2000 Whitbread Novel Award and the 2001 Orange Prize for Fiction.
Her next novel, The Great Lover, is due for publication in early 2009.
Jill Dawson has taught Creative Writing for many years and was recently the Creative Writing Fellow at the University of East Anglia. She lives with her family in the Cambridgeshire Fens.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
July 23, 2025
Dawson beautifully explores the life of Pamela Colman Smith, in all its detail. Not only does this novel provide a new lens to the tarot, but it shines light on the story of a brave & boundary pushing queer woman. Delicious x
February 3, 2026
If you’ve ever wondered who designed the Rider-Waite tarot deck, then this is the book for you. I’ve always known it as the Rider-Waite deck, and have a beloved set of cards myself, but didn’t notice until I read this book that mine is labelled as the ‘RWS Tarot’ with the name Pamela Colman Smith in large letters at the top, and since reading Pixie I couldn’t be more delighted with that.
Pamela Colman Smith is the subject of this incredible book. As often happens, she was a woman erased from history, and in original versions of the cards her name didn’t even appear (and neither did an appropriate amount of money for the work in creating these beautiful designs).
Known as Pixie, we follow Pamela through her teens and into her incredible life as an adult, where she mingles with a group of successful and well known friends. This is done superbly well, through the self-depreciating voice of Pixie herself. It took me a long time to read this book because I spent a lot of time googling the real life characters of her story, so I could picture them as I read. Places too are fun to research. Ellen Terry’s home that features in the book is now a National Trust property currently displaying some of Pixie’s artwork.
Tarot cards feature heavily in the book, and this is done not only through the imagination of Pixie herself as she builds worlds in her head inspired by people around her, but also through the titles of each chapter. The chapters are named after the Major Arcana cards, each with their correct corresponding numbers, and this detail was extremely satisfying. There is also a poetic description of each card in Pixie’s naive and childlike tone. I paused each time before I read on because I wanted to study the card alongside the description (all are available as images online).
Through my own searches during and after the book, I came across the discussions around Pixie’s race. Jill Dawson approaches this carefully and sensitively, and in a way that we can make our own mind up. There is controversy too around how Pixie presented herself to those that came to see her storytelling, as a self-identified white woman who spoke Patois and dressed in costume that suggested she was ‘exotic’. But this is also handled with care, with the naivety of Pixie’s world view, her experiences as a young girl who lived in Jamaica, and her confusion around the ways in which others perceived her as ‘different’.
I read this book as an e-ARC, but will be purchasing it in hardback when it is released on 12th March. I have been keen to try grangerising, and I can’t think of anything more delightful than adding images of Pixie’s artwork, photos of her celebrity friends, full versions of poetry included, tarot images. This book will be a treasure I will reread many times.
Pamela Colman Smith is the subject of this incredible book. As often happens, she was a woman erased from history, and in original versions of the cards her name didn’t even appear (and neither did an appropriate amount of money for the work in creating these beautiful designs).
Known as Pixie, we follow Pamela through her teens and into her incredible life as an adult, where she mingles with a group of successful and well known friends. This is done superbly well, through the self-depreciating voice of Pixie herself. It took me a long time to read this book because I spent a lot of time googling the real life characters of her story, so I could picture them as I read. Places too are fun to research. Ellen Terry’s home that features in the book is now a National Trust property currently displaying some of Pixie’s artwork.
Tarot cards feature heavily in the book, and this is done not only through the imagination of Pixie herself as she builds worlds in her head inspired by people around her, but also through the titles of each chapter. The chapters are named after the Major Arcana cards, each with their correct corresponding numbers, and this detail was extremely satisfying. There is also a poetic description of each card in Pixie’s naive and childlike tone. I paused each time before I read on because I wanted to study the card alongside the description (all are available as images online).
Through my own searches during and after the book, I came across the discussions around Pixie’s race. Jill Dawson approaches this carefully and sensitively, and in a way that we can make our own mind up. There is controversy too around how Pixie presented herself to those that came to see her storytelling, as a self-identified white woman who spoke Patois and dressed in costume that suggested she was ‘exotic’. But this is also handled with care, with the naivety of Pixie’s world view, her experiences as a young girl who lived in Jamaica, and her confusion around the ways in which others perceived her as ‘different’.
I read this book as an e-ARC, but will be purchasing it in hardback when it is released on 12th March. I have been keen to try grangerising, and I can’t think of anything more delightful than adding images of Pixie’s artwork, photos of her celebrity friends, full versions of poetry included, tarot images. This book will be a treasure I will reread many times.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Jill Dawson tells the story of Pamela Colman Smith, famous as the illustrator of the best-known Tarot deck, from the death of her mother in Jamaica to her decision to make a life in Cornwall with Nora Lake.
The account is in the first person, with chapter titles following the names and order of the Major Arcana. Each chapter has an epigraph describing a version of the card (not always following the published RWS artwork). These are cast as if the card's archetype is speaking to the reader directly. I quite liked this conceit in principle, but the relation between title, description and the contents of the chapter was not always clear. Imagery associated with the cards is also scattered throughout the novel, but for my taste sometimes feels a little clumsy or gratuitous.
Pamela comes across as an endearing character with a distinctive voice, albeit sometimes overly dramatic in her reactions. She seems a lot shyer and more naive than I would have imagined from the one biography I have read, but Dawson may have found material supporting this in her archival research. I would have liked her author's note at the end to go into a lot more detail on her sources and on what she has invented for the story vs taken from fact.
I enjoyed the often irreverent portraits of other well known figures in the overlapping occult, theatre and literary worlds. I appreciated the novel's awareness of race, gender and class dynamics in the interactions within these groups, while sometimes finding the execution a little heavy-handed.
The novel does reflect some of the key unanswered questions about Pamela's life, including her ethnicity, sexuality, possible neurodivergence, personal views on the occult, and reasons for her attraction (and eventual conversion, after the time frame covered by the book) to Catholicism. Most of these questions do not receive definitive answers, however.
The exception is sexuality; this is an expressly sapphic reading, drawing conclusions from Pamela's friendships with well known sapphic women and/or trans men (not yet distinct categories at the time, but rather both labelled "inverts") and the literature circulating in that milieu. I learned a lot about the writings of Ida Craddock and Florence Farr, amongst others. Pamela's developing sexuality is a key theme, and given this choice, I wish the story did not break off where it does. I would have loved to see more of Pamela and Nora's life in Cornwall, finding ways to reconcile their sexuality with their newfound Catholicism and to support themselves, however poorly, as independent women.
The account is in the first person, with chapter titles following the names and order of the Major Arcana. Each chapter has an epigraph describing a version of the card (not always following the published RWS artwork). These are cast as if the card's archetype is speaking to the reader directly. I quite liked this conceit in principle, but the relation between title, description and the contents of the chapter was not always clear. Imagery associated with the cards is also scattered throughout the novel, but for my taste sometimes feels a little clumsy or gratuitous.
Pamela comes across as an endearing character with a distinctive voice, albeit sometimes overly dramatic in her reactions. She seems a lot shyer and more naive than I would have imagined from the one biography I have read, but Dawson may have found material supporting this in her archival research. I would have liked her author's note at the end to go into a lot more detail on her sources and on what she has invented for the story vs taken from fact.
I enjoyed the often irreverent portraits of other well known figures in the overlapping occult, theatre and literary worlds. I appreciated the novel's awareness of race, gender and class dynamics in the interactions within these groups, while sometimes finding the execution a little heavy-handed.
The novel does reflect some of the key unanswered questions about Pamela's life, including her ethnicity, sexuality, possible neurodivergence, personal views on the occult, and reasons for her attraction (and eventual conversion, after the time frame covered by the book) to Catholicism. Most of these questions do not receive definitive answers, however.
The exception is sexuality; this is an expressly sapphic reading, drawing conclusions from Pamela's friendships with well known sapphic women and/or trans men (not yet distinct categories at the time, but rather both labelled "inverts") and the literature circulating in that milieu. I learned a lot about the writings of Ida Craddock and Florence Farr, amongst others. Pamela's developing sexuality is a key theme, and given this choice, I wish the story did not break off where it does. I would have loved to see more of Pamela and Nora's life in Cornwall, finding ways to reconcile their sexuality with their newfound Catholicism and to support themselves, however poorly, as independent women.
February 14, 2026
The Tarot designs of Pamela Colman Smith are well known to me, but I didn’t know anything about her history. This was an interesting reimagining of her life - her inspirations, beliefs and desires - and the story behind how she came to design the cards.
It’s a very bohemian, lesbian, feminist, mystical scene, peopled with actors, writers and activists of the time.
The chapters were divided into the major arcana cards, appropriately.
As with all historical fiction, much artistic licence was taken - there is no definitive proof of whether her parents were really both her parents, or whether she was mixed race or not - but it added an extra dimension to the story.
I’m glad to have learned more about this interesting female icon.
It’s a very bohemian, lesbian, feminist, mystical scene, peopled with actors, writers and activists of the time.
The chapters were divided into the major arcana cards, appropriately.
As with all historical fiction, much artistic licence was taken - there is no definitive proof of whether her parents were really both her parents, or whether she was mixed race or not - but it added an extra dimension to the story.
I’m glad to have learned more about this interesting female icon.
Review of advance copy received from Publisher
Many thanks to Bloomsbury for sending me the proof of ‘Pixie’. Pixie tells the story of Pamela Colman Smith, most well known today for her artwork on The Rider Waite Smith Tarot cards. I can’t adequately express how much I loved this book! I really felt like I was in the exciting and colourful world that Pixie inhabited. Not only do I now feel like I know her personally, I’ve also learnt so much about what being a queer, outspoken and ‘different’ woman in that era must have been like. Meeting Ellen Terry and Bram Stoker along the way were just a couple of the bonuses! Read this book!
February 2, 2026
I had never heard of the titular Pixie before but enjoyed this story of her life. The prose really brought her to life and was so immersive.
Each of locations (Jamaica, USA and England) felt distinctive and it’s always nice when Manchester is an important location!
The challenge of being a female artist more than century ago was clear but so was her refusal to bow to others viewpoints and conviction in her way was refreshing.
The meaning of the tarot cards was a bit lost on me but apart from that I had a good time reading this.
Thanks to NetGalley and Bloomsbury Publishing for the arc
Each of locations (Jamaica, USA and England) felt distinctive and it’s always nice when Manchester is an important location!
The challenge of being a female artist more than century ago was clear but so was her refusal to bow to others viewpoints and conviction in her way was refreshing.
The meaning of the tarot cards was a bit lost on me but apart from that I had a good time reading this.
Thanks to NetGalley and Bloomsbury Publishing for the arc
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews