Joseph Miller (1684 – 15 August 1738) was an English actor, who first appeared in the cast of Sir Robert Howard's Committee at Drury Lane in 1709 as Teague. After Miller's death, John Mottley (1692–1750) brought out a book called Joe Miller's Jests, or the Wit's Vade-Mecum (1739), published under the pseudonym of Elijah Jenkins Esq. at the price of one shilling. This was a collection of contemporary and ancient coarse witticisms, only three of which are told of Miller. This first edition was a thin pamphlet of 247 numbered jokes. This ran to three editions in its first year. Later (not wholly connected) versions were entitled with names such as "Joe Miller's Joke Book", and "The New Joe Miller" to latch onto the popularity of both Joe Miller himself and the popularity of Mottley's first book. Joke books of this format (i.e. "Mr Smith's Jests") were common even before this date. It was common practice to learn one or two jokes for use at parties etc. Owing to the low quality of the jokes in Mottley's book, their number increasing with each of the many subsequent editions, any time-worn jest came to be called "a Joe Miller", a Joe-Millerism, or simply a Millerism.