"She picked up the last card, that numbered nought, and exhibited it. [...] It was painted with the figure of a young man clothed in an outlandish dress of four striped colours—black and grey and silver and red; his legs and feet and arms and hands were bare, and he had over one shoulder a staff, carved into serpentine curves, that carried a round bag, not unlike the balls with which the juggler played. The bag rested against his shoulder, so that as he stood there he supported as well as bore it. Before him a dragon-fly, or some such airy creature, danced; by his side a larger thing, a lynx or young tiger, stretched itself up to him—whether in affection or attack could not be guessed, so poised between both the beast stood. The man's eyes were very bright; he was smiling, and the smile was so intense and rapt that those looking at it felt a quick motion of contempt—no sane man could be as happy as that. He was painted as if pausing in his stride, and there was no scenic background; he and his were seen against a flatness of dull gold." —Charles Williams, The Greater Trumps (available on Gutenberg). Cover art © Patrick H. Wynne. Further reproduction prohibited.
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Divining Tarot: Papers on Charles Williams's The Greater Trumps and Other Works by Nancy-Lou Patterson. Valleyhome Books, 2019.
Edited by Emily E. Auger and Janet Brennan Croft.
ISBN Hardcover 978-1-987919-08-0; Paperback 978-1-987919-10-3 Ebook 978-1-987919-09-7
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Review by Elizabeth Hazel at Facing North (April 2021)
Notice of Publication in the University of Waterloo's Daily Bulletin (Jan. 7, 2020)
The lead paper in this collection is Nancy-Lou Patterson's "The Triumph of Love: Interpretations of the Tarot in Charles Williams's The Greater Trumps," which she first presented in 1972 and published in the Mythcon Proceedings, 1974. Unfortunately, these proceedings are not widely distributed and thus the paper has received very little attention. We are very pleased to have to make it available once again.
Many individuals associated with the Mythopoeic Society have made this new edition of "The Triumph of Love" possible, including artists Sarah Beach and Bonnie Callahan, who contributed inside illustrations, and Patrick H. Wynne, who provided the marvelous cover picture illustrating Williams's Fool. In addition, permissions to use Tarot images were donated by U.S. Games and Mary K. Greer provided invaluable advice regarding the annotations to Patterson's scholarship provided in the introduction.
Table of Contents
List of Illustrations
Abbreviations for Charles Williams's Fiction
Foreword by Janet Brennan Croft
Introduction to "The Triumph of Love" by Emily E. Auger
Editorial Notes
1. The Triumph of Love: Interpretations of the Tarot in Charles Williams's The Greater Trumps
- I. The Greater Trumps
- II. Occult and Unconscious
- III. Origins of the Tarot
- IV. The Visconti-Sforza Tarot
- Chart 1. Tarot Titles and Order
- Chart 2. The Trumps of the 97-Card Minchiate Deck
- Chart 3. Moakley's Triumphal Cars
- Chart 4. Moakley's Triumph of Love
- Chart 5. Moakley's Triumph of Death
- Chart 6. Moakley's Triumph of Eternity
- Chart 7. Greater and Lesser Trumps
- V. The Traditional Tarot
- Chart 8. The Linear Order
- Chart 9. The Circular Order
- VI. The Charles Williams Tarot
- Chart 10. The Tarot Trumps, Triumphal Cars, and the Number of Times Each Trump is Mentioned in The Greater Trumps
- Chart 11. Williams's Triumph of Love
- Chart 12. Williams's Triumphs of Death and Eternity.
- Chart 13. Card Order in The Greater Trump Illustrations
- VII. The Sovereign Fool
2. The Jewels of Messias: Images of Judaism and Anti-semitism in the Novels of Charles Williams
3. Charles Williams
Appendix 1 Nancy-Lou Patterson's Tarot Collection
Appendix 2 Readings on Charles Williams in Mythlore
Bibliography
Index