(Covers to) Élémens de statistiq. : Élémens de statistique où l'on démontre, d'aprés entièrement neuf, les ressources de chaque royaume, état et république de l'Europe ; suivis d'un état sommaire des principales puissances et colonies de l'Indostan. Orné de cartes coloriées, représentant, d'un coup-d'aeil, les forces physiques de toutes les nations Européennes. Traduit de l'anglais de Wam. Playfair ... On y a ajouté un tableau comparatif de l'étenddue et de la population de tous les départemens de la France, un précis statistique des Etats-Unis d'Amerique, un essai sur la navigation intérieure de ce pays; un tableau des principles divisions du nouveau continent, un aperçu des marchandises et denrées qui conviennent le mieux au commerce des républiques Française et Américanine, etc., etc. Paris, Chez Batilliot jne., Libraire, rue Hautefeuille, no. 34. ; Genets jne., Libraire, rue de Thionville, no. 1846, près le Pont-Neuf. An XI. - (1802.). : Covers: Élémens de statistiq.

Bound with board, decorated in marbled paper. Spine has decorative floral pattern and title in gilt: Élémens de statistiq. Page ends are also marbled.

Statistical atlas containing xxxii, 182 pages, and [7] folded leaves of plates: 5 statistical maps and 2 statistical tables. Includes a preface, introduction, and statistical analysis, as well as texts describing principal nations: L'Empire de Toutes les Russies (p. 7), La Turquie (p. 11), Le Royaume de Suède (p. 14), L'Empire d'Allemagne, avant la guerre (p. 17), Etats de l'Empereur, avant la guerre (p. 20), Royaume du Danemarck (p. 23), La Pologne, avant le Partage de 1793 (p. 26), La France, depuis le Traité de Lunéville (p. 29), Le Royaume d'Espagne (p. 33), La Grande-Bretagne et l'Irlande (p. 36), Le Royaume de Prusse (p. 40), Naples et les deux Siciles (p. 42), Le Royaume de Portugal (p. 44), La Sardaigne et la Savoie (p. 47), L'Indostan (p. 54), Tableau statistique des colonies Anglaises dans l'Inde (p. 61), Ètats-Unis d'Amérique (p. 85). William Playfair was the inventor of statistical graphs, and thus a pioneer in infographics and data visualization. "Playfair’s charts can thus be understood as a direct response to the profusion of knowledge and information that we associate with the Enlightenment specifically and with the eighteenth century more generally. This seeming explosion of information—the sheer proliferation of raw data—is, of course, what enables Playfair’s time-series graphs" (Sachs). This copy is the first French edition of The Statistical Breviary. Playfair, the founder of graphical methods of statistics, published this work originally in English in 1801. It is considered his most theoretical book about graphics in which he “broke free of analogies to the physical world and drew graphics as designs-in-themselves” (Tufte), and contains what is generally credited as the first pie chart. Donnant (the translator into French) did not merely produce a translation but also added several original contributions to this edition, for example A Statistical Account of the United States of America, which Playfair translated into English and published in 1805. In “The Statistical Breviary: shewing, on a Principle Entirely New, the Resources of every State and Kingdom in Europe” [Playfair] first introduced the circle diagram and pie chart that used area to represent the relative sizes of geographical regions. Playfair ‘offers a creative combination of different visual forms: circles (used to show the area of nations), a pie chart (to show the divisions of the Turkish Empire), and lines (to show both population and taxes)’--Akerman & Karrow, p. 231 and illustrated as fig. 131 (English edition). Kress B.4583; see Tufte, Visual Display of Quantitative Information, p. 44.

Sachs, Jonathan. “1786/1801: William Playfair, Statistical Graphics, and the Meaning of an Event.” BRANCH: Britain, Representation and Nineteenth-Century History. Ed. Dino Franco Felluga. Extension of Romanticism and Victorianism on the Net. Retreived: http://www.branchcollective.org/?ps_articles=jonathan-sachs-17861801-william-playfair-statistical-graphics-and-the-meaning-of-an-event [3/11/2020].