Betty Miller (née Spiro; 1910 – 24 November 1965) was an Irish author of both literary fiction and non-fiction. Biography Betty Spiro was born in Cork, Ireland, the daughter of Sara (Bergson) and Simon Spiro, who were Lithuanian Jews. She wrote her first novel, The Mere Living (1933), while studying journalism at University College, London. Her literary reputation was established by the publication of her biography of Robert Browning (1952), which earned her election to the Royal Society of Literature. After the Second World War she wrote extensively for literary journals including Horizon, The Cornhill Magazine and The Twentieth Century. Of her seven novels, two are still in print: Farewell, Leicester Square (1941), published by Persephone Books in 2000, and On the Side of the Angels (1945), published by Capuchin Classics in 2012. Personal life In 1933, she married Emanuel Miller (1892–1970), the founding father of British child psychiatry. The couple had two children: Sarah (died 2006), and Sir Jonathan Miller (1934–2019), the theatre and opera director. Bibliography The Mere Living (1933) Sunday (1934) Portrait of the Bride (1935) Farewell Leicester Square (1941) A Room in Regent's Park (1942) On the Side of the Angels (1945) The Death of a Nightingale (1948) Robert Browning: A Portrait (1952) References 1910 births 1965 deaths Jewish novelists Jewish women writers Irish biographers Irish Jews Women biographers Irish women novelists 20th-century Irish women writers 20th-century Irish novelists 20th-century biographers People from Cork (city) Alumni of University College London People educated at Notting Hill & Ealing High School