Born in Newcastle, Victor Crittenden moved to Sydney with his family during the Depression. Educated at Homebush Boys High School, he served three years during World War II, ending the war in Rabaul. After the war, he attended the University of Sydney, from which he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts and, after a short period of teaching in Victoria, the University of Toronto, from which he graduated with a Bachelor of Library Services. He later completed a Master of Science in Economics by correspondence from the University of London, while working at the University of England.
Crittenden published, edited and compiled bibliographies, indexes, guides to reference sources and facsimile editions in the field of Australian literature and writers, particularly of the colonial period. He was editor, from 1995, of the periodical Margin, director of Mulini Press and founder of the John Lang Project, a project to publish and collect the works of and about John Lang, the first Australian-born novelist.
Crittenden began working as a librarian at the University of New England in the 1960s. At the end of the decade, he was offered the position of foundation librarian at would be become the University of Canberra (then the Canberra College of Advanced Education), where he remained until his retirement in 1986.
In the late 1970s, he founded Mulini Press, a small press devoted to republishing colonial Australian writing. He continued to run the press until well after his retirement. He was particularly notable for the John Lang project, an attempt to collect and publish the works of the first Australian-born novelist.
Crittenden was a member of the Lu Rees Archive Management Committee. He also published works on Australian history, including the First Fleet, and on the history of Australian gardens and gardening.
