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Henry Richard Vizetelly (30 July 18201 January 1894) was a British publisher and writer. 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 between 1880 and 1890, ran a publishing house in London, Vizetelly & Company.Denise Merkle, "Vizetelly & Company as (ex)change agent: Towards the modernization of the British publishing industry", In: Milton, John and Paul Bandia (eds), Agents of Translation, John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2009. vi, pp. 85–105. DOI: 10.1075/btl.81.05mer.
In 1843, encouraged by the success of the Illustrated London News, Vizetelly, 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 the bookseller David Bogue (1812-1856), he started a three-penny paper called the Illustrated Times, which four years later was merged in the Penny Illustrated Paper. His other brother, Frank Vizetelly (1830–1883) was a war artist for both sides during the American Civil War and went to Egypt as war correspondent for the Illustrated London News. He was never heard of after the massacre of Hicks Pasha's army in Kordofan.
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 Marius Topin's L'homme au masque de fer (1870) under the title The Man in the Iron Mask.
In 1872 Vizetelly was transferred to Berlin, where he wrote Berlin under the New Empire (1879).
In 1880 he established a publishing house in London, Vizetelly & Company. They issued numerous translations of French and Russian authors, such as the first English translation of Flaubert's Madame Bovary, made by Eleanor Marx in 1886. In 1887, they launched the Mermaid Series of reprints of English Elizabethan, Jacobean and Restoration drama, Mermaid Series, seriesofseries.com. Retrieved on 28 November 2016. and in 1888 he was prosecuted for obscene libel for publishing the translation of Zola's La Terre (The Soil), and was fined £100. When he continued to sell Zola's works in 1889, he was once more charged, given a £200 fine, and sentenced to three months in jail. As a result, Vizetelly & Co. filed for bankruptcy by the end of 1890. The Prosecution of the Publisher Henry Vizetelly in 1888, jack-the-ripper-tour.com. Retrieved 1 November 2021.
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 1 January 1894 at "Heatherlands", Tilford, near Farnham in Surrey.
Henry Vizetelly's interest in wines led to the creation of several books. The Wines of the World Characterized & Classed: with some particulars respecting the beers of Europe was published in 1875 and Facts About Champagne and Other Sparkling Wines Collected During Numerous Visits to the Champagne and Other Viticultural Districts of France, and the Principal Remaining Wine-Producing Countries of Europe was published in 1879. He was Wine Juror for Great Britain at the Vienna and Paris Exhibitions of 1873 and 1878. In 1882 he wrote A History of Champagne: with notes on the other sparkling wines of France. History of champagne : with notes on the other sparkling wines of France, worldcat.org. Retrieved 1 November 2021.
He had four sons by his first wife, "Obituary Notice of Frank H. Vizetelly" from Dictionary of American Biography notably Ernest Alfred Vizetelly (1853–1922) who edited and had republished some of the Zola translations previously published by his father. His other son Edward translated Zola's La Bête humaine in 1901 as "The Monomaniac". By his second wife, Elizabeth Anne Ansell, he had a daughter and a son, Frank Horace Vizetelly (1864–1938), who was a lexicographer, etymologist and editor.
Vizetelly was appointed knight of the Order of Franz Joseph.Title page of A History of Champagne: with notes on the other sparkling wines of France, 1882.
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