Since about 1975, a number of self-published tarot decks created by means of collage technique have shown up, many of them self-produced in very limited editions. At that time I found this to be a new and interesting innovation and a strong and agreeable contrast to the mass media pseudo-tarot decks the commercial tarot publishers overflow the market with. These privately produced collage decks were in general deeply felt and were often expressions of their creator's personal feelings and attitudes. By and by, however, it became fashionable to create "one's own tarot", a trend stimulated by workshops and courses dealing with "How to make your own tarot deck". This trend did, of course, open up for a lot of rather inferior products with no real contents, except the urge to demonstrate the so-called artists' abilities to use their graphic computer programs or glue and scissors.

One of these collage artists is Sarah Ovenall, who in 1999 privately produced a set of 22 major arcana cards named "Victoria Regina Tarot", in a limited number, only distributed to a small circle of tarot enthusiasts. Sarah's deck was unusual, also in the sense that it was in black and white; I can't recall any other collage decks in black and white and only rather a few modern tarot decks at all, for that matter. Her basic material for the collages were clippings of illustrations from Victorian-age magazines, which was also had a practical initiative, all the time the fright of infringing any copyright owners was and is a big issue among collage artists. After her self-publication of the major arcana series, which was very well received, she took the step to expand the tarot deck to a full 78 card deck. This deck, luckily still black and white (who knows what ideas about coloring could have shown up meanwhile?), is one of the very few collage decks, that has reached a commercial market, published now by the major esoteric and new age USA publisher, Llewellyn.

Heavy considerations have been made about choosing the appropriate symbols for the four minor suits. One typical, and in my opinion annoying, detail with many collage decks is, that they do not show the appropriate number of relevant suit marks as would be expected. In Victoria Regina Tarot they are shown in the right number and they are additionally very well integrated into the card image. The choice ended up by substituting the Wands with steel-pens, the Cups with what the artist calls "Mason Jars" (a name, completely unknown to me, for containers for home preservation of food). Guns substitute the Swords and pocket watches the Coins, all facilities for daily life invented or made common in the Victorian age.

The court cards depict personalities of the era. The Prince of Wands, for example, renders Oscar Wilde, The Princess of Wands is Princess Louise, Queen Victoria's sixth child. Victoria herself is rendered in various ages on all the Queen cards plus on the Princess of Swords. Other notabilities shown are Disraeli and Gladstone. Wherever possible, the source from where the images were taken, is given.

A 269 page book (fully illustrated with all cards) comes included with the deck, which Sarah Ovenall has co-authored with Georg Patterson. It describes in short the setting of the Victorian scene and brings also a genealogical tree, so the reader can place the Royalty depicted on the cards. Furthermore each card is described in detail. It is a text which easily can be read without any pre-knowledge of tarot.

The book and card deck-set is a different, interesting and well composed tarot, which can only be recommended; not only to people interested in tarot, but also to those, who have an interest in the Victorian age and its imagery.