Henry Richard Vizetelly (30 July 1820 – 1 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.
Life and career
Vizetelly was born in London, the son of a printer. He was early apprenticed as a wood-engraver, and one of his first woodblocks was a portrait of Old Parr. He said he was in San Francisco, California, when gold was discovered in 1849 and his book California (written under the pseudonym "J. Tyrwhitt Brooks") recounts adventures for four months in the gold fields. In his 1893 autobiography, Glances Back Through Seventy Years, he admits it was a hoax, as he had never left London and wrote the book in just a few weeks.
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.
