The Fantod Pack
Card deck by Edward Gorey
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Fantod Pack is a set of 20 illustrated divination cards created by American author and illustrator Edward Gorey, attributed to the pseudonym "Madame Groeda Weyrd," an anagram of his name.[1][2] Although it is "tarot-like",[2] the pack does not follow the standard 78-card tarot structure and is classified as an oracle deck.[3]
Gorey began work on the cards in 1959,[4] and they first appeared in Esquire in December 1966.[2][5] An unauthorized edition followed in the late 1960s, with authorized editions in 1995 and 2007.
Background
Gorey collected tarot decks,[6] and believed in "graphology, also palmistry, the I Ching, the tarot, astrology."[7] Biographer Mark Dery noted that Gorey did not trust cards to predict the future; his interest in divination grew from his fascination with Taoism and surrealism.[7] The Fantod Pack was not intended to be a serious divination tool.[7]
Description
In the Esquire feature, the pack is attributed to the fictional persona Madame Groeda Weyrd, described as "a nom de gare merely; her true one is known to few this side of the grave."[5] Weyrd is "of mixed Finnish and Egyptian extraction," a former trance medium who lost "two and a third fingers" during an ectoplasmic manifestation, and the author of invented works including Floating Tambourines and The Future Speaks Through Entrails. Of the pack's origin, the text states only that "it is of incredible antiquity."[5]
The imagery includes recurring motifs from Gorey's work: urns, men in fur coats, and ill-fated children.[8] The card back depicts Figbash, a recurring Gorey character, on a unicycle, balancing a platter with a skull, a goblet, and a candle.[9]
The word fantod means "a state of worry or nervous anxiety, irritability,"[10] and each of the 20 cards predicts disaster.[4] Each card is associated with a day of the week or a month, and carries a list of misfortunes, often using obscure vocabulary such as barratry, cafard, champerty, and inanition.[5][10] For example, "The Child" shows a small skeleton playing with a toy animal; its associated misfortunes include "denigration," "sexual inadequacy," "hallucinations," "loss of youth," and "catarrh." "The Feather" includes "blackmail," "hysterical pregnancy," "loss of eyelashes," and "a disagreeable letter." "The Plant" lists "sexual indecision," "misplaced confidence," "dissolution," and "worms."[4][5][9] The cards' meanings are described as "selective rather than exhaustive, and hints rather than assertions," and the reader is told to rely on their own "imagination of disaster" to interpret the cards in combination.[5]
The final card, known as "The Black Doll," is the only one without a printed title and has no month or list of afflictions.[3][5][9] Its text reads: "In the words of the old rhyme: What most you fear / Is coming near."[5]
Usage
The instructions tell the user to "stand in the centre of a sparsely furnished room and close your eyes. Fling the pack into the air." The user then picks up five cards and lays them in a cross. The center card "represents and defines the basic situation"; the top, "something from the past that continues to affect your future"; the left, "your inner self"; the right, "the outer world"; and the bottom, "something about to come into being in the near future."[5][11]
Because they were first printed on magazine pages rather than as standalone cards, the Esquire article instructed readers to cut out the cards and glue them onto cardboard.[5]
Publication history
The Fantod Pack first appeared in a December 1966 Esquire article titled "A Chthonian Christmas," in a section called "The Awful Vista of the Year."[2][5][12]
A c. 1969 edition from the Owl Press, published as The Fantod Pack of Edward Gorey, reproduced the images from the Esquire feature without Gorey's involvement.[13][14] The cards were printed in purple ink on fluorescent green cardstock and came with a yellow fold-out instruction sheet.[15] A blue paper band held the pack together.[15]
The first authorized edition appeared in 1995 from Manhattan's Gotham Book Mart. It was printed as an edition of numbered and lettered copies, all signed by Gorey.[1] It contained 20 laminated cards and a booklet in an illustrated box.[1] The Gotham Book Mart produced multiple printings of this edition.[1]
In 2007, Pomegranate produced its own laminated edition with a booklet reproducing the interpretive text from Esquire.[7][11][13]
Reception
Cynthia Rose compared "The Child" to a Max Beerbohm caricature of Aubrey Beardsley walking a dog.[4] Dery interpreted "The Ancestor" card of a Victorian gentleman with a fur collar and a missing face as a possible reference to Gorey's relationship with his father.[16] He compared "The Bundle," a roped package, to Man Ray's 1920 surrealist work The Enigma of Isidore Ducasse, noting that while Man Ray's wrapped object conceals a known sewing machine, Gorey's contents remain permanently unknowable.[17]
The Movable Book Society has argued that the pack functions as a kind of movable book: by combining the text associated with each card, "it is possible to achieve a story with more variations than Gorey claimed for The Helpless Doorknob."[2]