Fernando Pessoa & Co playing cards

Published July 03, 1996 • Updated May 15, 2022

Fernando Pessoa & Co playing cards - Lisbon

Fernando Pessoa & Co playing cards - Lisbon

Fernando Pessoa (1888-1935) ranks with the most important Modernist poets of the 20th century. His celebrity is partly due to the way in which he wrote his work, using different names, or 'heteronyms', corresponding to various personalities which he invented. "A poet is a pretender", he wrote in a famous poem.

Some of the verse extracts which appear in this pack of cards belong to those other personalities of Pessoa's world: Alberto Caiero, Álvaro de Campos, Bernardo Soares and Ricardo Reis.

The designer of the pack, Pedro Baptista, succeeds well in capturing the essence of a poet's mind in a visual form. The verses are set in a typewriter font, aesthetically quaint and unpretentious, against soft, unfocused 'photograms' occupying the entire card face. This conveys a sense of thoughts floating in imaginary dimensions of space - cyberspace perhaps. Corner indices, also in typewriter, and discrete pips finish off the arrangement. On the back, an ink splotch on a pale cream background, fallen no doubt from the poet's poised pen, conspiring, with the typewriter, against modern technology.

Above: two cards from Fernando Pessoa & Co playing cards.

The text in the leaflet is by Manuela Parreira da Silva, an expert on the work of Fernando Pessoa and a teacher of modern literature in the Universidade Nova de Lisboa. The cards are manufactured to a very high standard of quality by Naipes H Fournier in a limited edition of 5,500 packs of which 3,500 are in Portuguese and 1,000 each in English and Spanish. They come in a sturdy tuck box, cellowrapped, 52 cards + 3 jokers + leaflet.

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By Simon Wintle

Spain • Member since February 01, 1996 • Contact

I am the founder of The World of Playing Cards (est. 1996), a website dedicated to the history, artistry and cultural significance of playing cards and tarot. Over the years I have researched various areas of the subject, acquired and traded collections and contributed as a committee member of the IPCS and graphics editor of The Playing-Card journal. Having lived in Chile, England, Wales, and now Spain, these experiences have shaped my work and passion for playing cards. Amongst my achievements is producing a limited-edition replica of a 17th-century English pack using woodblocks and stencils—a labour of love. Today, the World of Playing Cards is a global collaborative project, with my son Adam serving as the technical driving force behind its development. His innovative efforts have helped shape the site into the thriving hub it is today. You are warmly invited to become a contributor and share your enthusiasm.

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Fernando Pessoa & Co playing cards

Fernando Pessoa & Co playing cards - Lisbon

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