Pritchett left his London school at age 15 to work in the leather trade. He became a full-time journalist in 1922, working as a literary critic for the New Statesman (1926–65) and occasionally writing travel articles for the Christian Science Monitor. Both of these occupations proved fruitful; his journalism sharpened his powers of observation, and Pritchett eventually became as well known for his perceptive essays and reviews as for his penetrating and finely crafted short stories. His novels, including his first fiction publication, Clare Drummer (1929), are generally considered to be less successful. His short stories were published in several volumes, including You Make Your Own Life (1938), Collected Stories (1956), When My Girl Comes Home (1961), The Camberwell Beauty (1974), and A Careless Widow (1989). He is the author of travel books, from Marching Spain (1928) to At Home and Abroad (1989), and two volumes of memoirs, A Cab at the Door (1968) and Midnight Oil (1971). Collections of his critical essays include The Myth Makers (1979) and A Man of Letters (1985).

Pritchett was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1968 and was knighted in 1975.