William Miller (British publisher)
Encyclopedia
William Richard Beckford Miller (1769–1844) was one of the leading English publishers of the early 19th century.
, on 25 March 1769, the son of Thomas Miller
(1731–1804), a bookseller and antiquarian, and Sally Kingsbury of Waveney House, Bungay. As a youth, he evinced a taste for drawing, and was advised by Sir Joshua Reynolds
to enter the Royal Academy
as a student, but in 1787 he was placed in Hookham's publishing house.
, London, where the first book which he sent forth was his uncle Dr. Edward Miller's Select Portions of the New Version of the Psalms of David, with Music. A series of publications in large quarto, illustrating the costumes of various countries, with descriptions in English and French, brought him considerable profit. Among his other successful ventures may be mentioned Hewlett's Views of Lincolnshire, John Stoddart
's Remarks upon Scotland and Forster's edition of the Arabian Nights Entertainments, illustrated by Robert Smirke
. In 1804 Miller removed to a larger house in Albemarle Street
, where he continued until his retirement from business in 1812, being succeeded by John Murray
. During this period he was one of the most popular publishers in London. He took shares in the poems of Sir Walter Scott
, and published solely Scott's edition of Dryden
in 18 volumes octavo
. He reprinted The Antient Drama,British Drama, Shakespeare and Francis Blomefield
's History of Norfolk
, 11 volumes, octavo, and Samuel Richardson
's works in nineteen small octavo volumes. The Travels of Viscount Valentia
, Sir Richard Colt Hoare's Giraldus Cambrensis
and the same author's Ancient History of South Wiltshire, volume i., were among his most splendid undertakings. His British Gallery was notable for the excellence of the engravings. In 1826 he 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. He announced, but did not print, a continuation.
's History of the Reign of James II
Miller paid £4,500, hitherto the largest sum ever given for literary property. Five thousand copies were printed in demy quarto at £1.16s. by Savage, and 250 copies on royal quarto at £2.12s.6d., with fifty upon elephant size quarto at £5 by Bulmer. Miller barely cleared his expenses by the speculation.
, but after a brief experience of country life and five years on the continent, he removed to Duchess Street, Portland Place
, London. He died on 25 October 1844, at Dennington
, Suffolk
, the residence of his son, the Rev. Stanley Miller.
(1910–1994). There is a good portrait of him, engraved by E. Scriven, after a painting by Thomas Phillips
R. A.
Origins and early life
William Miller was born at Bungay, SuffolkBungay, Suffolk
Bungay is a market town in the English county of Suffolk. It lies in the Waveney valley, west of Beccles on the edge of The Broads, and at the neck of a meander of the River Waveney.-Early history:...
, on 25 March 1769, the son of Thomas Miller
Thomas Miller (bookseller)
-Origins and early life:Miller was born at Norwich on 14 August 1731, the son of Thomas Miller, a pavior. He was apprenticed to a grocer, but when he commenced business for himself in 1755 his fondness for reading induced him to combine bookselling with his other trade.-Bookseller and...
(1731–1804), a bookseller and antiquarian, and Sally Kingsbury of Waveney House, Bungay. As a youth, he evinced a taste for drawing, and was advised by Sir Joshua Reynolds
Joshua Reynolds
Sir Joshua Reynolds RA FRS FRSA was an influential 18th-century English painter, specialising in portraits and promoting the "Grand Style" in painting which depended on idealization of the imperfect. He was one of the founders and first President of the Royal Academy...
to enter the Royal Academy
Royal Academy
The Royal Academy of Arts is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly, London. The Royal Academy of Arts has a unique position in being an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects whose purpose is to promote the creation, enjoyment and...
as a student, but in 1787 he was placed in Hookham's publishing house.
Career as a publisher
In 1790 he commenced business on his own account in Bond StreetBond Street
Bond Street is a major shopping street in the West End of London that runs north-south through Mayfair between Oxford Street and Piccadilly. It has been a fashionable shopping street since the 18th century and is currently the home of many high price fashion shops...
, London, where the first book which he sent forth was his uncle Dr. Edward Miller's Select Portions of the New Version of the Psalms of David, with Music. A series of publications in large quarto, illustrating the costumes of various countries, with descriptions in English and French, brought him considerable profit. Among his other successful ventures may be mentioned Hewlett's Views of Lincolnshire, John Stoddart
John Stoddart
Sir John Stoddart was a writer and lawyer, and editor of The Times.-Biography:Stoddart, eldest son of John Stoddart, lieutenant in the Royal Navy, was born at Salisbury. His only sister, Sarah, married, on 1 May 1808, William Hazlitt. He was educated at Salisbury grammar school, and matriculated...
's Remarks upon Scotland and Forster's edition of the Arabian Nights Entertainments, illustrated by Robert Smirke
Robert Smirke (painter)
Robert Smirke , was an English painter and illustrator.-Life and work:Smirke was born at Wigton near Carlisle, the son of a clever but eccentric travelling artist. In his thirteenth year he was apprenticed in London with an heraldic painter, and, at the age of twenty, began to study at the schools...
. In 1804 Miller removed to a larger house in Albemarle Street
Albemarle Street
Albemarle Street is a street in Mayfair in central London, off Piccadilly. It has historic associations with Lord Byron, whose publisher John Murray was based here, and Oscar Wilde, a member of the Albemarle Club, where an insult he received led to his suing for libel and to his eventual imprisonment...
, where he continued until his retirement from business in 1812, being succeeded by John Murray
John Murray (1778-1843)
John Murray was a Scottish publisher and member of the famous John Murray publishing house.The publishing house was founded by Murray's father, who died when Murray was only fifteen years old. During his youth, a partner, Samuel Highley, ran the business, but in 1803 the partnership was dissolved...
. During this period he was one of the most popular publishers in London. He took shares in the poems of Sir Walter Scott
Walter Scott
Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet was a Scottish historical novelist, playwright, and poet, popular throughout much of the world during his time....
, and published solely Scott's edition of Dryden
John Dryden
John Dryden was an influential English poet, literary critic, translator, and playwright who dominated the literary life of Restoration England to such a point that the period came to be known in literary circles as the Age of Dryden.Walter Scott called him "Glorious John." He was made Poet...
in 18 volumes octavo
Octavo (book)
Octavo is a technical term describing the format of a book, which refers to the size of leaves produced from folding a full sheet of paper on which multiple pages of text were printed to form the individual sections of a book...
. He reprinted The Antient Drama,British Drama, Shakespeare and Francis Blomefield
Francis Blomefield
Francis Blomefield was an English antiquary, who projected a county history of Norfolk. During his lifetime, he compiled and published detailed accounts of the city of Norwich, Borough of Thetford and the southern hundreds of the county, but died before the whole work could be completed.-Biography...
's History of Norfolk
Norfolk
Norfolk is a low-lying county in the East of England. It has borders with Lincolnshire to the west, Cambridgeshire to the west and southwest and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the North Sea coast and to the north-west the county is bordered by The Wash. The county...
, 11 volumes, octavo, and Samuel Richardson
Samuel Richardson
Samuel Richardson was an 18th-century English writer and printer. He is best known for his three epistolary novels: Pamela: Or, Virtue Rewarded , Clarissa: Or the History of a Young Lady and The History of Sir Charles Grandison...
's works in nineteen small octavo volumes. The Travels of Viscount Valentia
Viscount Valentia
Viscount Valentia is a title in the Peerage of Ireland. It has been created twice. The first creation came in 1621 for Henry Power. A year later, his kinsman Sir Francis Annesley, 1st Baronet, was given a "reversionary grant" of the viscountcy, which stated that on Power's death Annesley would be...
, Sir Richard Colt Hoare's Giraldus Cambrensis
Giraldus Cambrensis
Gerald of Wales , also known as Gerallt Gymro in Welsh or Giraldus Cambrensis in Latin, archdeacon of Brecon, was a medieval clergyman and chronicler of his times...
and the same author's Ancient History of South Wiltshire, volume i., were among his most splendid undertakings. His British Gallery was notable for the excellence of the engravings. In 1826 he published two quarto volumes of Biographical Sketches of British Characters recently deceased, commencing with the Accession of George the Fourth
George IV of the United Kingdom
George IV was the King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and also of Hanover from the death of his father, George III, on 29 January 1820 until his own death ten years later...
, with a list of their Engraved Portraits. He announced, but did not print, a continuation.
A less successful venture
For the copyright of Charles James FoxCharles James Fox
Charles James Fox PC , styled The Honourable from 1762, was a prominent British Whig statesman whose parliamentary career spanned thirty-eight years of the late 18th and early 19th centuries and who was particularly noted for being the arch-rival of William Pitt the Younger...
's History of the Reign of James II
James II of England
James II & VII was King of England and King of Ireland as James II and King of Scotland as James VII, from 6 February 1685. He was the last Catholic monarch to reign over the Kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland...
Miller paid £4,500, hitherto the largest sum ever given for literary property. Five thousand copies were printed in demy quarto at £1.16s. by Savage, and 250 copies on royal quarto at £2.12s.6d., with fifty upon elephant size quarto at £5 by Bulmer. Miller barely cleared his expenses by the speculation.
An unfortunate decision
In 1810, Miller turned down the chance to publish Lord Byron's epic poem "Childe Harold". This decision was supposedly taken because the poem attacked Miller's patron, Lord Elgin, as a "plunderer" (an opinion not a few Greeks would agree with). As a business decision it was unfortunate as John Murray II published it instead with great success. A forgiving Lord Byron wrote to William Miller saying that he could "perfectly conceive, and indeed approve your reasons, and assure you my sensations are not Archiepiscopal enough as yet to regret the rejection of my Homilies."Retirement and death
In Beloe's 'Sexagenarian' (vol. ii pp. 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". However, in a private memoir written in 1841, Miller, writing in the third person, states" various circumstances connected with his extensive concerns, but which it is unnecessary to swell this memoir by detailing, induced him after long & mature deliberation to retire from business in 1812 when he was succeeded by the present Mr. John Murray." 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." Miller took a farm in HertfordshireHertfordshire
Hertfordshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East region of England. The county town is Hertford.The county is one of the Home Counties and lies inland, bordered by Greater London , Buckinghamshire , Bedfordshire , Cambridgeshire and...
, but after a brief experience of country life and five years on the continent, he removed to Duchess Street, Portland Place
Portland Place
Portland Place is a street in the Marylebone district of central London, England.-History and topography:The street was laid out by the brothers Robert and James Adam for the Duke of Portland in the late 18th century and originally ran north from the gardens of a detached mansion called Foley House...
, London. He died on 25 October 1844, at Dennington
Dennington
For the town in Victoria, Australia, see Dennington, VictoriaDennington is a small village in Suffolk, England, just north of Framlingham along the A1120 Bypass.-External links:* - village's local newspaper website...
, Suffolk
Suffolk
Suffolk is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in East Anglia, England. It has borders with Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south. The North Sea lies to the east...
, the residence of his son, the Rev. Stanley Miller.
Private life
In 1790, at Doncaster, Miller married his cousin Mary, second daughter of his uncle Dr. Edward Miller organist of Doncaster and composer (When I survey the Wondrous Cross). Mary died the following year and in 1798, Miller married Susannah, the daughter of the Reverend Richard Chapman of Bakewell in Derbyshire , by whom he had four children - two sons and two daughters. One of his descendants is the British Nobel Prize-winning Chemist, Dorothy Crowfoot HodgkinDorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin
Dorothy Mary Hodgkin OM, FRS , née Crowfoot, was a British chemist, credited with the development of protein crystallography....
(1910–1994). There is a good portrait of him, engraved by E. Scriven, after a painting by Thomas Phillips
Thomas Phillips
Thomas Phillips was a leading English portrait and subject painter. He painted many of the great men of the day including scientists, artists, writers, poets and explorers.-Life and work:...
R. A.
Royal Academy
The Royal Academy of Arts is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly, London. The Royal Academy of Arts has a unique position in being an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects whose purpose is to promote the creation, enjoyment and...