Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a joke-book.

1789		G. Parker Life’s Painter 96: The Narrator should not laugh immoderately, and what he delivers, should not be found in every common jest book, or a Joe Miller.
1803		Sporting Mag. July XXII 254/2: Ha! ha! Mr. Jimcrack [...] you are always turning over a leaf in Joe Miller.
1859		Times ‘Rev. of Ramsay’s Reminiscences’ 25 Oct. n.p.: There is more ‘wit’, more mere word-flashing in one page of our familiar joe, than in the whole of Dean Ramsay’s book [F&H].
1864, 1867, 1870		Hotten Sl. Dict. 163: Joe a too marvellous tale, a lie, or a stale joke. Abbreviated from ‘Joe Miller’. The full name is occasionally used, as in the phrase ‘I don’t see the joe miller of it,’ i.e., I don’t perceive the wit you intend.
1874		H. Mayhew London Characters 347: This happens to be one of the wittiest figures of speech to be found in the whole of the rogue’s ‘Joe Miller’.
1885		Bulletin (Sydney) 5 Sept. 6/2: He might have been depicted, for instance, as a contributor to that stomach-aching journal, sitting in the office with a well-thumbed ‘Joe Miller.’.
1894		G.A. Sala Things I Have Seen II 34: The story may be, for aught I know, in Joe Miller.
1903		A.H. Lewis Boss 19: Say! he ought to put that in the Joe Miller Joke-book.
1947		T. Thursday ‘Billy the Kidder’ in Blue Ribbon Western Nov. 🌐 Three more hombres tell stories that even Joe Miller refused to put in his joke book.

2. (also Joe Millerism) a joke, esp. an old ‘chestnut’; thus I don’t see the Joe Miller of it, I don’t see what’s funny about it.

1800		Chester Chron. 9 May 1/3: The Joe Miller story of an irishman who, when travelling, always breakfasted over night to save time.
1803		Sporting Mag. July XXII 254/2: If my grand-father told the frolics of his youth and finished his narration with a good point – ‘Ha! ha!’ cries a listener, ‘that’s a good Joe Miller.’ [Ibid.] 255/1: If a simple joke escaped [...] ‘A Joe Miller,’ cried some one, ’page 45, turn’d down, and much thumbed at the bottom.’.
1816		W. Scott Antiquary (1830) 172: A fool and his money are soon parted, nephew: there is a Joe Miller for your Joe Manton .
1833		Leeds Mercury 8 June 7/2: ‘An old joke — a regular Joe!’ exclaimed our companion [...] ‘Still older than Joe Miller,’ was our reply.
1841		Punch 17 July I iii: An asylum for the thousands of orphan jokes — the superannuated Joe Millers — the millions of perishing puns, which are now wandering about.
1850		F.E. Smedley Frank Fairlegh (1878) 475: Well, of all the vile puns I ever heard, that, which I believe to be an old Joe Miller, is the worst.
1857		Adelaide Times (SA) 30 July 3/3: [W]rite some good sermons about the curse of drunkenness, and give up your slang, muddled allegories, and laboured leaden Joe Millers.
1859		G.A. Sala Twice Round the Clock 321: To sit [...] on the third row of the pit, roaring at the stalest Joe Millerisms.
1861		R.F. Burton City of the Saints 03: A popular Joe Miller anent him is this: [etc.].
1864, 1867, 1870		Hotten Sl. Dict. 163: JOE, a too marvellous tale, a lie, or a stale joke. Abbreviated from ‘Joe Miller.’ [...] ‘I don’t see the joe miller of it,’ i.e., I don’t perceive the wit you intend.
1885		Bulletin (Sydney) 15 Aug. 20/3: We had of course the funny man who retailed ‘Joe Millers,’ and the serious man who discoursed on Divine inspiration.
1891		Punch CI 31 Oct. 210: We have all for ever so long, since the memory of the oldest JOE MILLER, which runneth not to the contrary, known that Dentists drew teeth.
1894		Truth (Sydney) 7 Oct. 4/3: Simple-minded louts who were too charitable to his his ancient Joe-Millerisms.
1904		Ade ‘The Fable of the Poor Woman’ in True Bills 7: He had a collection of Hostetters that made Joe Miller seem comparatively Recent.
1922		Joyce Ulysses 129: There’s a ponderous pundit MacHugh / Who wears goggles of ebony hue. / As he mostly sees double / To wear them, why trouble? / I can’t see the Joe Miller. Can you?
1938		S. Beckett Murphy (1963) 48: This was the kind of Joe Miller that Murphy simply could not bear to hear revived. It had never been a good joke.
1946		Mezzrow & Wolfe Really the Blues 202: We’d giggle at how the audience ate up the corny Joe Miller routines.

3. a joke-teller, a humourist.

1834		Marryat Peter Simple (1911) 421: ‘At all events, he set us an example during the action,’ muttered the Joe Miller; and the other men laughed heartily.
1850		Melville White-Jacket (1990) 387: He perpetually wore a hilarious face, and at joke and repartee was a very Joe Miller.
1873		‘Cuthbert Bede’ Little Mr. Bouncer 178: Why, you’re setting up for quite a wit, Joe! we must call you Joe Miller if this sort of thing goes on.
1885		Bulletin (Sydney) 17 Jan. 6/2: ‘Yes,’ chipped in another horse-hair-bedecked Joe Miller; ‘and I remember there was another humble individual, who, in days gone by, was known as plain Mr. Joseph Innes; but after a brief sojourn in Fiji, he came back as Sir George Long Innes.’.
1893		P.H. Emerson Signor Lippo 42: At half-past ten six of us went out black, the bosh faker, the grid faker, two Joes, Tots and Tarblo.
1902		Sun (NY) 12 Oct. 18/2: One o’ those fat-jowled, Joe Miller people tipped me the greasy grin .
1908		‘Doss Chiderdoss’ ‘First in the Field’ Sporting Times 29 Feb. 1/3: ‘I’m not joking—’ ‘No, of course not, you are not Joe King, I know, / Any more than I’m Joe Miller,’ piped the merry beak.
1910		Bulletin (Sydney) 29 Sept. 10/1: He could joke like Joe Miller; / His smile was a ‘killer’; / His buttonhole bore an azalea.
1999		F. Wheen Karl Marx 327: The finance minister Ernest Picard is dubbed ‘the Joe miller of the government of National Defence’.