The Flawed Genius of William Playfair : : The Story of the Father of Statistical Graphics / / David R. Bellhouse.

• VerfasserIn: Bellhouse, David R. ,
• Place / Publishing House: Toronto : : University of Toronto Press, , [2023]; 2023
• Year of Publication: 2023
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (356 p.) :; 47 colour illustrations

A product of the Scottish Enlightenment, William Playfair (1759-1823) worked as a statistician, economist, engineer, banker, land speculator, scam artist, and political propagandist. It has been claimed - erroneously - that Playfair was a spy for the British government and ran a forging operation to...

Table of Contents

• Frontmatter
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Preface: Playfair Is Introduced
• Acknowledgments
• 1 Playfair Is Sent to Newgate Prison
• 2 Playfair Goes to Birmingham to Work for Boulton and Watt
• 3 Playfair Goes to London to Set Up His Own Business
• 4 Playfair Evolves into a Writer by Profession
• 5 Playfair Expresses His Early Political Views
• 6 Playfair Makes His Mark on Statistical Graphics
• 7 Playfair Goes to Paris
• 8 Playfair Tries to Take Advantage of the French Revolution
• 9 Playfair Escapes from France and Returns to England
• 10 Playfair Becomes an Avid Anti-Jacobin Propagandist
• 11 Playfair Gets Involved with Forged Assignats
• 12 Playfair Starts a Bank and Goes Bankrupt
• 13 Playfair Ekes Out a Living as a Bankrupt
• 14 Playfair Has a Good Year during 1805 with Hints of Ending Badly
• 15 Playfair Has Serious Legal and Other Problems
• 16 Playfair Dabbles Deeply in Family History and Political Biography
• 17 Playfair Tries to Pull a Major Scam on Lord Bathurst about Bonaparte
• 18 Playfair Continues Writing and Tries a Few More Scams to Get to Paris
• 19 Playfair Returns to Paris
• 20 Playfair Spends His Last Few Years in England in Poverty
• Afterword: Playfair Avoids a Shakespearian Epitaph
• Appendix: Assignat Forging by French Émigrés in England
• Notes
• References
• Index