William Carlos Williams was an American poet, writer, and physician closely associated with modernism and imagism.

William Chaffers was an English antiquary and writer of reference works on hallmarks, and marks on ceramics. His Marks and Monograms on Pottery and Porcelain, first published in 1863, has appeared in many later editions.

William Clark Russell was an English writer best known for his nautical novels.

William Cleaver Wilkinson, D.D. was a Baptist preacher, professor of theology, professor of poetry, and literary figure. He popularized the "Three W's and the Five W's".

William Cobbett was an English radical pamphleteer, journalist, politician, and farmer born in Farnham, Surrey. He was one of an agrarian faction seeking to reform Parliament, abolish "rotten boroughs", restrain foreign activity, and raise wages, with the goal of easing poverty among farm labourers and small land holders. Cobbett backed lower taxes, saving, reversing commons enclosures and returning to the gold standard. He opposed borough-mongers, sinecurists, bureaucratic "tax-eaters" and stockbrokers. His radicalism furthered the Reform Act 1832 and gained him one of two newly created seats in Parliament for the borough of Oldham. His polemics range from political reform to religion, including Catholic emancipation. His best known book is Rural Rides. He argued against Malthusianism, saying economic betterment could support global population growth.

William Collins was an English poet. Second in influence only to Thomas Gray, he was an important poet of the middle decades of the 18th century. His lyrical odes mark a progression from the Augustan poetry of Alexander Pope's generation and towards the imaginative ideal of the Romantic era.

William Combe was a British miscellaneous writer. His early life was that of an adventurer, his later was passed chiefly within the "rules" of the King's Bench Prison. He is chiefly remembered as the author of The Three Tours of Doctor Syntax, a comic poem, illustrated by artist Thomas Rowlandson's colour plates, that satirised William Gilpin. Combe also wrote a series of imaginary letters, supposed to have been written by the second, or "wicked" Lord Lyttelton. Of a similar kind were his letters between Swift and "Stella". He also wrote the letterpress for various illustrated books, and was a general hack.

William Congreve was an English playwright, poet and Whig politician. His works, which form an important component of Restoration literature, were known for their use of satire and the comedy of manners genre. Notable plays he wrote include The Old Bachelor (1693), The Double Dealer (1694), Love for Love (1695), The Mourning Bride (1697) and The Way of the World (1700). Dying in London, Congreve was buried at the Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey.

William Cowper was an English poet and Anglican hymnwriter. One of the most popular poets of his time, Cowper changed the direction of 18th-century nature poetry by writing of everyday life and scenes of the English countryside. In many ways, he was one of the forerunners of Romantic poetry. Samuel Taylor Coleridge called him "the best modern poet", whilst William Wordsworth particularly admired his poem "Yardley-Oak".

William Cowper Brann was an American journalist also known as Brann the Iconoclast. During his life, he gained a reputation as a "brilliant though vitriolic editorialist."