Émile Zola, Novelist and Reformer: An Account of His Life & WorkVizetelly, Ernest Alfred
General
Émile Zola, Novelist and Reformer: An Account of His Life & Work
Vizetelly, Ernest Alfred
Zola, Émile, 1840-1902
[2] The writer has a copy of this article, a very able one, cut from
the pages of a review or magazine, which, unfortunately he has been
unable to identify.
[3] Researches made by the late James T. G. Vizetelly, who was long the
senior member of the family (1818-1897), traced it back to Ravenna,
whence it removed to Venice. Henry Vizetelly, when preparing his
autobiography, had no family documents before him and fell into various
errors in his account of his forerunners.
[4] Even his business, that of Vizetelly, Branston & Co., printers and
publishers, was at one time known merely by the name of the "Co.," that
is as Whitehead's, though J. H. Vizetelly was managing partner. He
had served his apprenticeship with the Coxes, and did not take up his
freedom (his father and grandfather had been freemen of the city before
him) till September, 1827. He was a man of considerable gifts; he
wrote for several periodicals, produced a variety of verse (privately
printed by himself) initiated the famous "Boy's Own Book," as well as
"Cruikshank's Comic Almanack" of which he became the "Rigdum Funnidos,"
and was one of the best amateur actors of his time. He was very
intimate with Edmund Kean, whom he greatly resembled in appearance, and
it is said that more than once when Kean was hopelessly drunk he took
his place on the boards. Such at least was the story often told to the
writer by his grandmother (James Henry's widow) and expressly confirmed
to him by an old family friend, Mr. Lemprière, son of the Lemprière of
the "Classical Dictionary."
[5] He has related the greater part of his career in his "Glances
Back through Seventy Years," and an account of it, of some length,
will be found in the "Dictionary of National Biography." But for the
purpose which the present writer has in view he considers it as well to
recapitulate its chief features.
[6] Among others, James Hannay, Edmund Yates, Robert Brough, G. A.
Sala, Sutherland Edwards, J. C. Parkinson, Augustus Mayhew, Frederick
and James Greenwood, Tom Robertson, John Hollingshead, "Phiz," Birket
Foster, Henry Meadows, Gustave Doré, Charles Keene, Edmond Morin,
Gustave Janet, the Claxton sisters, Matt. Morgan, etc.
[7] Arthur and Frank Horace Vizetelly, both born at Kensington, the
former on October 31, 1855, the latter on April 2, 1864. Both educated
at Eastbourne and in France. The former has written and edited various
English educational works and periodicals. The latter, resident in New
York since 1891, has since become supervisor of the editorial work,
and secretary of the editorial board of the "Jewish Encyclopædia,"
and associate editor of the "Standard Dictionary," besides helping
to produce several other well-known works of reference. In 1901,
the Governor of Bermuda having given him special access to the Boer
prisoners, he wrote several papers on their condition. He has also
written on Zola in American periodicals.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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