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Lost Envoy: The Tarot Deck of Austin Osman Spare
In the Spring of 2013 a 79-card, hand-painted tarot deck created c.1906 by the mystic and artist Austin Osman Spare, was identified within the collections of The Magic Circle Museum in London.
Austin Spare’s life-long interest in cartomancy is well documented, yet very few of his own fortune-telling cards were thought to have survived. This compelling new example of the artist’s early work demonstrates his precocious involvement with the currents that shaped the British Occult Revival at the beginning of 20th century, and his interactions with some of the period’s lesser-known protagonists.
Magic Circle Museum curator and artist Jonathan Allen immediately recognised that Spare’s cards were not only art-historically significant, but also entirely unknown outside of The Magic Circle’s collections, and set about tracing the deck’s provenance, its place in the artist’s oeuvre and within the wider histories of cartomancy.
Lost Envoy reproduces Austin Spare’s tarot deck in its entirety for the first time, alongside new written and visual contributions from Jonathan Allen, Phil Baker, Helen Farley, Alan Moore, Kevin O’Neill, Sally O’Reilly and Gavin Semple.
The book is designed by Fraser Muggeridge studio, with a cover incorporating the vibrant back colours of Spare’s cards, a period binding common to many of the volumes found in The Magic Circle library and a gold deboss of the artist’s autographic ‘bird-head’ motif, as discovered within the deck itself. The numbered and debossed special edition contains several fold-out sections showing conspicuous alignment between cards.
Austin Spare’s life-long interest in cartomancy is well documented, yet very few of his own fortune-telling cards were thought to have survived. This compelling new example of the artist’s early work demonstrates his precocious involvement with the currents that shaped the British Occult Revival at the beginning of 20th century, and his interactions with some of the period’s lesser-known protagonists.
Magic Circle Museum curator and artist Jonathan Allen immediately recognised that Spare’s cards were not only art-historically significant, but also entirely unknown outside of The Magic Circle’s collections, and set about tracing the deck’s provenance, its place in the artist’s oeuvre and within the wider histories of cartomancy.
Lost Envoy reproduces Austin Spare’s tarot deck in its entirety for the first time, alongside new written and visual contributions from Jonathan Allen, Phil Baker, Helen Farley, Alan Moore, Kevin O’Neill, Sally O’Reilly and Gavin Semple.
The book is designed by Fraser Muggeridge studio, with a cover incorporating the vibrant back colours of Spare’s cards, a period binding common to many of the volumes found in The Magic Circle library and a gold deboss of the artist’s autographic ‘bird-head’ motif, as discovered within the deck itself. The numbered and debossed special edition contains several fold-out sections showing conspicuous alignment between cards.
336 pages, Hardcover
Published May 11, 2016
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
January 31, 2021
This book turned out to be a fascinating rabbit hole.
I knew very little about Austin Osman Spare other than he was a revered surrealist artist and influential magician [of the "occult" type, not the "theatrical" type]. I have an affinity for genius weirdos, so the legend of Spare caught my attention. Intrigued, I requested this book through my library with no other information than the title.
Spare apparently created a hand-made Tarot deck for his own use in c.1906. He never seems to have mentioned the deck as he drifted from Tarot fandom shortly thereafter and the deck was eventually given/sold by Spare to The Magic Circle, a British society and museum for magicians [of the "theatrical" type, not the "occult" type]. The Magic Circle considered the deck to be not much more than a curiosity and the deck sat in their vaults, untouched for decades.
By the time the deck was rediscovered in 2013, Spare's renown [he died in 1956] among artists and esotericists had grown greatly. The deck is far more than a DIY item made by a fringe misfit over 100 years ago, however, and this book delves into the many reasons Spare's Tarot deck is important and worthy of study and display.
Not only are each of the cards a unique art piece by Spare, but his inclusion of his own innovative features, such as marginal drawings that are only completed when two cards are placed side-by-side and his written interpretations on each card face [a kind of reference guide built into the deck] make this unlike any Tarot deck before or, likely, since.
The Who/What/When/Where/Why around the deck's creation add many layers to the story which give weight to this bizarre and unique divination deck.
This book is written and published by people who clearly have an admiration for the talented oddball that Spare was. It's well-researched, including an analysis of the provenance [the chain of custody for an art piece] of the deck and a thorough analysis of every detail Spare included in his personal deck.
It turns out that a book about one deck of cards was incredibly interesting.
I knew very little about Austin Osman Spare other than he was a revered surrealist artist and influential magician [of the "occult" type, not the "theatrical" type]. I have an affinity for genius weirdos, so the legend of Spare caught my attention. Intrigued, I requested this book through my library with no other information than the title.
Spare apparently created a hand-made Tarot deck for his own use in c.1906. He never seems to have mentioned the deck as he drifted from Tarot fandom shortly thereafter and the deck was eventually given/sold by Spare to The Magic Circle, a British society and museum for magicians [of the "theatrical" type, not the "occult" type]. The Magic Circle considered the deck to be not much more than a curiosity and the deck sat in their vaults, untouched for decades.
By the time the deck was rediscovered in 2013, Spare's renown [he died in 1956] among artists and esotericists had grown greatly. The deck is far more than a DIY item made by a fringe misfit over 100 years ago, however, and this book delves into the many reasons Spare's Tarot deck is important and worthy of study and display.
Not only are each of the cards a unique art piece by Spare, but his inclusion of his own innovative features, such as marginal drawings that are only completed when two cards are placed side-by-side and his written interpretations on each card face [a kind of reference guide built into the deck] make this unlike any Tarot deck before or, likely, since.
The Who/What/When/Where/Why around the deck's creation add many layers to the story which give weight to this bizarre and unique divination deck.
This book is written and published by people who clearly have an admiration for the talented oddball that Spare was. It's well-researched, including an analysis of the provenance [the chain of custody for an art piece] of the deck and a thorough analysis of every detail Spare included in his personal deck.
It turns out that a book about one deck of cards was incredibly interesting.
September 25, 2016
A superb presentation and examination of a rare and historically important discovery of a personal tarot deck created by Austin Osman Spare, one of the most unique esotericist and artist of the early 20th century. The volume is beautifully produced and bound, and features reproductions of each card, with detailed analysis of images, meanings, and unique marginal images/text that connect specific cards to each other. There are also insightful reflections by esoteric contributors such as Phil Baker and Alan Moore.
Highly recommended for those interested in Spare and Tarot!
Highly recommended for those interested in Spare and Tarot!
January 27, 2018
Fascinating set of essays on the tarot created by the 20 year old Spare in 1906, plus enlarged reproductions of the images themselves. The book beautifully designed book is a work of art in its own right.
January 12, 2025
An absolutely fascinating companion to Strange Attractor’s Spare biography, beautifully illustrated and full of incredibly important context and historical images relating to Spare’s idiosyncratic deck. I could have done without Moore at his most precious and the weird Pankhurst story, but the rest is absolutely wonderful even for a tarot naysayer like myself
June 12, 2024
Intriguing glimpse of the homebrew slipstream occultism of Austin Osman Spare via his syncretic cartomancy deck. Full review: https://fakegeekboy.wordpress.com/202...
August 6, 2025
A beautiful book, with great quality images and reproductions, it's of special merit the reproductions of AOS actual tarot cards, each of them reproduced with every detail possible. The articles, while some of them interesting, were more into hypotheses of why and how AOS constructed his deck
April 18, 2017
Beautiful presented but the topic is quite limited so it runs out of steam. Still, if you want to down the rabbit hole of Spare's deck, well have at 'er!
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews