Where/How to Buy a Marseilles Deck in England - 1853?

Found a post where Queen of Pentacle (funny enough, my book's name is Queen of Wands) posted a link to the deck on Taroteca. It's not listed under Soprafino, but the cards look the same. http://taroteca.multiply.com/photos/album/171

I love this deck! I may have to go back after the month is over and rewrite my descriptions of the Marseilles because this is so much more beautiful. I think it would make sense if she had a Marseilles as well--just two decks, something to reflect her time in France--but this is too lovely to pass up. Got some backstorying to sift through now.

There were no books on reading with the Marseille deck at that time (except as someone might extrapolate from De Gébelin & De Mellet's articles. Eliphas Lévi had begun to include material in his works on the magical aspects of the Major Arcana (Dogma & Ritual of High Magic - 1854). The deck that would have been used in France would have been an Etteilla deck (with books by Etteilla, D'Odoucet, P. Boiteau d’Ambly and Julia Orsini. Or a regular playing card deck or one of the Oracle decks that were springing up, although an Italian Guppenberg/Soprafino or Bolognese might have been possible. Paul Baptiste Grimaud began manufacturing cards in 1848.

You might want to check some of the simple meanings appearing on the Bolognese cards to get a sense of how the cards were perceived at that time.

There were high taxes on importing playing cards to protect the British industry, so I would think it most likely that if a Marseille or Etteilla deck was obtained in England it would have been second hand from one of the book stalls.

Thanks, Teheuti, I will check out the Etteila as well. I figured she probably didn't learn from the deck but had a bit passed down from the friend who got her started, a bit from talking with other readers, and throw in a little intuition as well. But perhaps she also read one of the books you mentioned--I'll look into those too.

This is really helpful! I have the main story and most of the other info I need, but the older tarot stuff has been harder to get my hands on.

Miren said:

Found a post where Queen of Pentacle (funny enough, my book's name is Queen of Wands) posted a link to the deck on Taroteca. It's not listed under Soprafino, but the cards look the same

Click to expand...

It is the same deck. It's just a repro published by lo Scarabeo under the name Classical Tarot. The "proper" name is probably not Soprafino (that name was given for the Meneghello publication). The most authentic way to refer to it in your book would be "a deck published by the Gumppenberg company in Milan"

Hope that helps!