Social Victorians/People/Pamela Colman Smith

Also Known As

• Miss Pamela Colman Smith
• Pixie Pamela
• Golden Dawn motto: Quod Tibi Id Allis — Whatever You Would Have Done to Thee (Norfleet; not on Alastor's list); Quod Tibi Id Allis — "To yourself as to others" (Küntz 212)

Demographics

• Nationality: Charles Edward Smith, American; Corinne Colman, Jamaican

Residences

• Brooklyn, New York, 1893
• London, May 1900, 2 November 1901

Family

• Charles Edward Smith (– December 1899)
• Corinne Colman ( – 1896)

1. Pamela Colman Smith (16 February 1878 – 18 September 1951)

Relations

• William Gillette, cousin

Acquaintances, Friends and Enemies

Acquaintances

• Henry Irving
• Christopher Marie St. John (née Christabel Gertrude Marshall), whose work Smith published in The Green Sheaf
• Edward Thomas
• Lascelles Abercrombie
• Gordon Bottomley
• Robert and Sylvia Lynd
• Cecil Chesterton

Friends

• Ellen Terry
• Edith Craig
• Bram Stoker, called him Uncle Brammy
• W. B. Yeats
• Jack Yeats
• A. E. Waite
• Arthur Michell Ransome (1884–1967)

Organizations

• Lyceum Theatre group, costumes and stage design
• London Suffrage Atelier
• The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, the Isis-Urania Temple, Outer Order only (Küntz 212)
• Watkins Books, 21 Cecil Court, Russell Square

Timeline

1889, Smith's family moved to Kingston, Jamaica (she was around 10 or 11).

1893, Smith was in Brooklyn, New York, and going to art school.

1896, Smith's mother, Corinne Colman, died in Jamaica.

1899, Smith visited London with her father.

1899 October, Smith met Bram Stoker, Henry Irving, and Ellen Terry in New York and joined their tour of the U.S.

1899 December, Smith's father, Charles Edward Smith, died in New York.

1900, late May, Smith moved to London when the Lyceum Theatre tour returned there.

1900, mid-October through December 22, Smith accompanied the Lyceum Theatre group on a tour of England.

1901 November 2, Smith joined the Golden Dawn, introduced by Yeats.

Circa 1903, Smith held studio "evenings," attended by people like Edward Thomas, Lascelles Abercrombie, Gordon Bottomley, Robert and Sylvia Lynd, Cecil Chesterton (Avery).

1903, launched The Green Leaf, a magazine that published work by Yeats, Christopher St John (Christabel Marshall), Cecil French, A. E. (George William Russell), Gordon Craig (Ellen Terry's son), Dorothy Ward, and John Todhunter.

1904 June 20, opening of William Butler Yeats's Where There is Nothing, which Smith and Edith Craig designed, at the Royal Court Theatre, London.

1907, Smith had an exhibition of paintings at Alfred Stieglitz's gallery in New York.

1909 April through October, designed with A. E. Waite the Tarot Cards, with a portrait of Ellen Terry as Queen of Wands and Florence Farr on The World.

1911, Smith converted to Catholicism.

1916, Ellen Terry wrote a letter to the U.S. embassy in London attesting to Smith's citizenship (Norfleet).

1918, Smith moved to Parc Garland, Lizard Peninsula, Cornwall (Norfleet).

Bibliography

• Avery, Gillian. "Arthur Michell Ransome." ODNB.
• Cockin, Katharine. "Christopher Marie St. John." ODNB.
• Küntz
• Norfleet, Phil. Biography of Pamela Colman Smith. http://pcs2051.tripod.com/index.htm. Last modified 30 March 2011.

Colman Smith's Works

• Smith, Patricia Colman. Annancy Stories. Robert Howell Russell, 1902.
• Smith, Patricia Colman, illustrator. Bluebeard. 1913.
• Smith, Patricia Colman, illustrator. The Book of Friendly Giants, by Eunice Fuller.
• Smith, Patricia Colman, illustrator. The Book of Good Advice, by Reginald Rigby. 1906.
• Smith, Patricia Colman, illustrator. book on Ellen Terry, by Bram Stoker. Late 1890s.
• Smith, Patrician Colman. Chim-Chim. 1905.
• Smith, Patricia Colman, Fair Vanity. Late 1890s.
• Smith, Patricia Colman, illustrator. Four Plays, by Laurence Alma Tadema. 1905.
• Smith, Patricia Colman, illustrator. The Illustrated Verses of William Butler Yeats. Late 1890s.
• Smith, Patricia Colman, illustrator. In the Valley of Stars There Is a Tower of Silence, by Smara Khamara. 1906.
• Smith, Patricia Colman. The Lair of the White Worm, by Bram Stoker. 1911.
• Smith, Patricia Colman, illustrator. The Pictorial Key to the Tarot, by A. E. Waite. 1910.
• Smith, Patricia Colman. The Russian Ballet, by Ellen Terry. 1913.
• Smith, Patricia Colman, illustrator. Saints among the Animals, by Alphaeus P. Cole and Margaret Ward. 1905.
• Smith, Patricia Colman, illustrator. Tales from My Garden, by Laurence Alma Tadema. 1905.
• Smith, Patricia Colman. Widdicombe Fair. Late 1890s.
• Waite, A. E., and Patricia Coleman Smith. Tarot Cards. London: William Rider & Son, 1909.