I read the version by the version compiled by Howard Wainer and Ian Spence published in 2005 as The Commercial and Political Atlas and Statistical Breviary.
Summary
Although the book is available online on Google Books and archive.org for free, they do not contain the 4 data viz that are in the original version. Hence, I have to find a copy in the reference section of my library. I think not everyone will be lucky to have access to a library carrying the book, so I have gone online to find the images. I have managed to find 2 of the 4 images (1st in the opening, 2nd below) where you can see the first occurrence of pie charts in Playfair's writing. Images screenshotted from here:
The contents of the book are less about charts and more about economic stats similar to Playfair's other book where we have seen the first appearances of the bar and line chart, The Commercial and Political Atlas that I have reviewed here. As such, there is nothing to write home about from a data visualisation standpoint that has not been said by many others who have written about Playfair. However, I do think the many tables in the book and structure of the book that have Playfair written about the countries one by one have created missed opportunities to manufacture more compelling data vizzes.
Things I Like:
1. The charts. The combination charts are the first instances of a pie chart. It is interesting to see how the pie charts are being used first, before the transformation to the ones we often see today. Perhaps, we have missed out on using the pie charts differently.
Final Verdict: A recommended read for anyone into the history and origins of charts.