Tableaux D'arithméTique LinéAire, Du Commerce, Des Finances, Et De La Dette Nationale De L'angleterre. Suivis D'un Essai Sur La Meilleure ManièRe De Faire Les Emprunts Publics, D'aprèS La Comparaison Des Emprunts PerpéTuels Et Des AnnuitéS De Quinze AnnéEs, En Angleterre Par Le MêMe Auteur. Le Tout Traduit De L'anglois. Playfair, William.

First edition in French, combining Playfair's Commercial and Political Atlas (1786) with his Essay on the National Debt (1787), both pioneering works in data visualisation and graphic display. William Playfair (1759-1823) invented the series line graph, the bar chart, and the pie chart "without significant precursors" (ODNB). He published many books and pamphlets incorporating such charts and graphs, holding that they were the best means of displaying empirical data, yet met with indifference in his native England. His work was better received in France, where he lived from 1787, and he contributes a new introduction to this translation. The translator Henry Jansen (1741-1812) was for a time librarian to Talleyrand, and later became the imperial censor. Kress B.1694; Goldsmiths' 13787. Quarto (252 x 181 mm). Contemporary mottled calf, red morocco label, gilt ornaments in compartments, marbled endpapers, yellow edges. With 12 hand-coloured plates, of which 11 folding. 20th-century bookseller's ticket of Raymond Clavreuil to front pastedown. Joints splitting but holding firm, pale dampmark to front endpapers, light rippling to contents. A very good copy.