Rhoda Broughton was a Welsh novelist and short story writer. Her early novels earned a reputation for sensationalism, so that her later, stronger work tended to be neglected by critics, although she was called a queen of the circulating libraries. Her novel Dear Faustina (1897) has been noted for its homoeroticism. Her novel Lavinia (1902) depicts a seemingly "unmanly" young man, who wishes he had been born as a woman. Broughton descended from the Broughton baronets, as a granddaughter of the 8th baronet. She was a niece of Sheridan le Fanu, who helped her to start her literary career. She was a long-time friend of fellow writer Henry James and was noted for her adversarial relationship with both Lewis Carroll and Oscar Wilde.

Richard Briscoe Cook (1838–1916), D.D., was a British author most known for his biography of William Ewart Gladstone, The Grand Old Man.

Richard Barnfield was an English poet. His obscure though close relationship with William Shakespeare has long made him interesting to scholars. It has been suggested that he was the "rival poet" mentioned in Shakespeare's sonnets.

Richard Baxter was an English Nonconformist church leader and theologian from Rowton, Shropshire, who has been described as "the chief of English Protestant Schoolmen". He made his reputation in the late 1630s by his ministry at Kidderminster in Worcestershire, when he also began a long and prolific career as theological writer.

Richard Brinsley Butler Sheridan was an Anglo-Irish playwright, writer and Whig politician who sat in the British House of Commons from 1780 to 1812, representing the constituencies of Stafford, Westminster and Ilchester. The owner of the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in London, he wrote several prominent plays such as The Rivals (1775), The Duenna (1775), The School for Scandal (1777) and A Trip to Scarborough (1777), along with serving as Treasurer of the Navy from 1806 to 1807. After dying in 1816, Sheridan was buried at Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey, and his plays remain a central part of the Western canon and are regularly performed around the world.

Richard Chenevix Trench was an Anglican archbishop and poet.

Richard Cobbold was a British writer.

Bishop Richard Corbet was an English clergyman who rose to be a bishop in the Church of England. He is also remembered as a humorist and as a poet, although his work was not published until after his death.

Richard Crashaw was an English poet, teacher, High Church Anglican cleric and Roman Catholic convert, who was one of the major metaphysical poets in 17th-century English literature.

Richard Cumberland was an English dramatist and civil servant. In 1771 his hit play The West Indian was first staged. During the American War of Independence he acted as a secret negotiator with Spain in an effort to secure a peace agreement between the two nations. He also edited a short-lived critical journal called The London Review (1809). His plays are often remembered for their sympathetic depiction of characters generally considered to be on the margins of society.