May Lamberton Becker was a journalist and literary critic. She was born in New York and at the age of 20 she married the pianist and composer Gustav L. Becker in 1893. Their only daughter Beatrice was born September 20, 1900. By 1908 the marriage had broken up and later ended in divorce. She died at her daughter's house, in Epsom, Surrey, England, in April 1958, aged 84.