Vizetelly was born in England, the only son of Henry Vizetelly and his second wife, Elizabeth Anne Ansell. After an education in France and England, he joined his father"s publishing house in 1882. The firm and his father were eventually ruined by convictions for obscenity resulting from the publication of the novels of Émile Zola.
His half-brother was Ernest Alfred Vizetelly (1853–1922). He moved to New York in 1891, eventually becoming naturalised as a citizen of the United States. The publishers Funk & Wagnalls employed him, beginning on the Isaac K. Funk"s editorial staff compiling A Standard Dictionary of the English Language.
His continued to act as an editor for the firm"s dictionaries and encyclopedia, and had a column in their Literary Digest known as "The Lexicographer"s Easy Chair."
He died in 1938, being interred at New York"s Woodlawn Cemetery.
