Henry Richard Vizetelly

Background

Henry Richard Vizetelly was born in London on the 30th of July 1820, the son of a printer.

Career

He was early apprenticed as a wood engraver, and one of his first blocks was a portrait of " Old Parr. " Encouraged by the success of the Illustrated London News, Vizetelly in 1843, with his brother James Thomas Vizetelly (1817 - 1897) and Andrew Spottiswoode (1787 - 1866), started the Pictorial Times, which was published successfully for several years. In 1855, in partnership with Boyne, he started a threepenny paper called the Illustrated Times, which four years later was merged in the Penny Illustrated Paper. In 1865 Vizetelly became Paris correspondent for the Illustrated London News. During the years he remained in Paris he published several books-Paris in Peril (1882), The Story of the Diamond Necklace (1867) and a free translation of Topin's Man in the Iron Mask. In 1872 he was transferred to Berlin, where he wrote Berlin under the New Empire (1879). In 1887 he established a publishing house in London, issuing numerous translations of French and Russian authors. In 1888 he was prosecuted for publishing a translation of Zola's La Terre, and was fined £100; and when he reissued Zola's works in 1889 he was again prosecuted, fined £200 and imprisoned for three months. In 1893 he wrote a volume of autobiographical reminiscence called Glances Back through Seventy Years, a graphic picture of literary Bohemia in Paris and London between 1840 and 1870. He died on the 1st of January 1894. His younger brother, Frank Vizetelly (1830 - 1883), was a clever artist and journalist; he went to Egypt as war correspondent for the Illustrated London News and was never heard of after the massacre of Hicks Pasha's army in Kordofan.

Achievements

• He started the publications Pictorial Times and Illustrated Times, wrote several books while working in Paris and Berlin as correspondent for the Illustrated London News, and in 1887 founded a publishing house in London, Vizetelly and Company.
  
  Vizetelly was appointed knight of the Order of Franz Joseph.

Works

More photos

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  • California

    (... I felt heartily glad to hear that we were then cleari...)

  • The Fortune of the Rougons

    (The Fortune of the Rougons (La Fortune des Rougon) was or...)

  • Berlin under the New Empire: Volume 2: Its Institutions, Inhabitants, Industry, Monuments, Museums, Social Life, Manners, and Amusements (Cambridge Library Collection - European History)

    (In the wake of German unification in 1871, Berlin became ...)

  • The Story of the Diamond Necklace Told in Detail for the First Time: Chiefly by the Aid of Original Letters, Official and Other Documents, and Contemporary Memoirs Recently Made Public; etc.. Volume 1

    (This Elibron Classics book is a facsimile reprint of a 18...)

  • Extracts principally from English classics: showing that the legal suppression of M. Zola's novels w

    (This is a pre-1923 historical reproduction that was curat...)

  • Facts About Sherry: Gleaned In The Vineyards And Bodegas Of The Jerez, Seville, Moguer, And Montilla Districts During The Autumn Of 1875 (1876)

    (This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of th...)

  • Facts About Port And Madeira: With Notices Of The Wines Vintaged Around Lisbon, And The Wines Of Tenerife (1880)

    (This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of th...)

  • Glances Back Through Seventy Years: Autobiographical and Other Reminiscences (V.1 ) (1893)

    (Originally published in 1893. This volume from the Cornel...)

  • California: Four Months among the Gold-Finders; being the Diar

    (*)

  • Facts About Champagne and Other Sparkling Wines

Connections

He had four sons by his first wife, notably Ernest Alfred Vizetelly who reworked some of his father's Zola translations and published these bowdlerized versions in the 1890s. By his second wife, Elizabeth Anne Ansell, he had a daughter and a son, Frank Horace Vizetelly.

Spouse:

Elizabeth Anne Ansell

Brother:

James Thomas Vizetelly

Brother:

Frank Vizetelly

Son:

Ernest Alfred Vizetelly

Son:

Frank Horace Vizetelly

Lexicographer, etymologist and editor