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Pixie

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Pixie

By: Ms Jill Dawson
Narrated by: Kristin Atherton
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About this listen

 Bloomsbury presents Pixie by Jill Dawson, read by Kristin Atherton

“Pixie”. I like it. “Pixie Pamela”. It’s a good name for me: 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 contradictions: 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.©2026 Ms Jill Dawson (P)2026 Bloomsbury Publishing Plc Biographical Fiction Genre Fiction Horror World Literature

Critic reviews

Pixie is a captivating insight into the life of the most famous occult artist you've never heard of (PAULA HAWKINS, author of The Girl on the Train)
In Pixie, Jill Dawson has deftly conjured back into life a woman who is shrouded in mystery and the occult. For too long Pamela Coleman Smith has remained an anecdote to England’s rich history of magic, when indeed, via her life and drawings for the Ryder-Waite-Smith tarot deck, she played a central role . . . I not only rejoiced in this book, but welcome it as an important work of feminist reclamation . . . Pixie is a story that needed to be told. She is in good hands, here, and a work of magic has been done. It’s thrilling to live with this book (MONIQUE ROFFEY, author of The Mermaid of Black Conch)
Pixie is a living, bouncing, thinking entity on the page . . . A fabulous writer and a wonderful book (LOUISA YOUNG, author of My Dear I Wanted to Tell You)

A wonderful evocation of the life and times of a bewitching artist. Jill Dawson has a gift for turning up the unexpected card in any deck and Pixie is one of her best (ROMESH GUNESEKERA, Booker Prize-shortlisted author of Reef)
All stars
Most relevant
For me, the sign of a good narrator is that I am engaged in the content and am unaware of them. Unfortunately, the terse, overly emphatic tone and peculiar cadence, (not to mention the am dram male voices), meant that I was very much aware of the narrator hamming it up throughout.
The writing was a bit clumsy at first but improved after a slow start.
A few errors in word use grated but overall a great story

Engaging story spoiled by the narration

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A brilliant story of an inspiring, courageous, vibrant woman, told with warmth and heart

‘I’ve just finished a big job for very little cash! A set of designs for a pack of Tarot cards 80 designs… some people may like them.’ Pamela Colman Smith wrote this to her friend after receiving the commission to design the Rider-Waite Tarot deck that is familiar to us all. As more than 100 million copies of the deck have been sold worldwide, I think it’s safe to say that a lot of people did like them!

And I like this book very much. Jill Dawson brings to life another women forgotten in history, with vibrancy, beauty and heart.

This is a profoundly feminist book. Pamela Colman Smith – Pixie to her friends – defied the expected tradition of the time. Her uncle strongly recommended she marry to secure her future, but she chose not to. Even though she lived from job to job and was often worried about money, she wouldn’t give up her own ambitions. She was extremely modern in that way and I was on her side, willing her on throughout.

I love the little details, such as how she described WB Yeats as a ‘rummy critter’. And Jill Dawson describes each setting so vividly, I felt as though I was there – from her mother’s bedside in Jamaica, to the Lyceum theatre, the salons where she performed, to the fresh air of the gardens at Ellen Terry’s country garden.

Each chapter begins with a poem about one of the Major Arcana cards, 22 in total, each of which perfectly represents the emotional and symbolic theme of that chapter. These poems are a joy to read, and, in effect, give us two books for the price of one!

Pixie never got the recognition or financial reward she deserved. Her father told her it was unseemly to take about money and that he would have taken her to the bank to show her how the money side of things worked if she was a boy, but she wasn’t so he didn’t. Her name wasn’t credited on the Rider-Waite deck – now renamed the Rider-Waite-Smith deck. It’s an injustice that she didn’t get the recognition or payment she deserved in her lifetime. By bringing Pixie to life in this novel, Jill Dawson is helping give her the justice she so rightly deserves.

All of Jill Dawson’s books are works of art, and Pixie is as brilliant, thought-provoking, and beautiful as them all.

Beautiful narration of a brilliant story

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