William Richard Beckford Miller (25 March 1769 – 25 October 1844) was one of the leading English publishers of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, known for his popular and expensive titles.

As William Miller tells in an unpublished memoir, his paternal grandfather was "a respectable Paviour", who completely repaved the streets of Norwich and Bury St. Edmund's.

When a youth William showed a talent and a taste for drawing, and Sir Joshua Reynolds advised that he enter the Royal Academy as a student.

Among his other successful ventures were Hewlett's Views of Lincolnshire, John Stoddart's Remarks upon Scotland and Forster's edition of the Arabian Nights Entertainments, illustrated by Robert Smirke.

He printed, in royal Quarto, The Costumes in coloured plates of China, Russia, Turkey, Austria and England and, at the other end of the scale, issued The Miseries of Human Life by the Reverend J. Beresford, which Miller described as the "most popular little work of the day", passing through several editions in a few months.

The Travels of Viscount Valentia, Sir Richard Colt Hoare's Giraldus Cambrensis and the same author's Ancient History of South Wiltshire, Vol.

His British Gallery was notable for the excellence of the engravings from "pictures of the Italian, French, Flemish, Dutch and English Schools now in the possession of the King and the Noblemen and Gentlemen of the United Kingdom".

After 14 years of retirement Miller published two quarto volumes of Biographical Sketches of British Characters recently deceased, commencing with the Accession of George the Fourth, with a list of their Engraved Portraits.

Byron, then 23 years old, wrote to William Miller (30 July 1811) from Reddish's Hotel, saying that he regretted that "you decline the publication, on my account, as I think the book would have done better in your hands".

270–271), William Miller is described as "the splendid bookseller", who "was enabled to retire to tranquillity and independence long before the decline of life, or infirmities of age, rendering it necessary to do so".

"Rather than having attained riches as his peers had been led to believe, Miller states that his "retirement from business was a bold & irretrievable act at the age of forty-two when he was thrown upon his own resources with a very scanty realized property and a young family to bring up, educate & send into the world."