PLAYFAIR, William (trans.); DONNANT, Denis François.

£8,500 · Offered by Peter Harrington · No longer available

Statistical Account of the United States of America. First edition in English of this scarce statistical study of the early US economy, government, and landscape. The Statistical Account is translated and includes a lavish hand-coloured pie chart by William Playfair, one of the earliest known examples of its kind. This copy was formerly owned by the Tory Prime Minister George Canning, from whom it passed to Sir John Gladstone, father of William.George Canning (1770-1827) and William Playfair had an ambivalent relationship: in his Political Portraits (1813), the latter wrote of the former that "there is a flippancy in his manner which ill accords with the solidity of his matter: he is, moreover, too eager to seek occasion to shine. Great men seize occasion when it comes, but they do not seek for it" (pp. 218-19). Canning, in turn, rebuked Playfair in 1822, when the latter took advantage of a rival's death to send Canning a politically charged pamphlet suggesting an alternative course. Canning's relationship with Gladstone (1764-1851) was far stronger: the latter, a Liverpool merchant, helped manage Canning's election campaigns in the city throughout the 1810s. Gladstone acquired this book following Canning's premature death: his inscription on the initial blank reads: "From Mr Canning's Library, June 1828, JG". The bookplate of the Fasque House library, Gladstone's country home in Aberdeenshire, is on the front pastedown.Denis François Donnant (1769-post 1819) originally wrote

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