May Byron

Mary Clarissa "May" Byron (née Gillington; 1861 – 5 November 1936) was a British writer and poet, best known for her abridgements of J. M. Barrie's Peter Pan books.

The family moved to Bisley, Surrey when her father found work as a chaplain at the Brookwood Hospital, the local asylum.

[4] She went on to write a series of biographies, describing the day-to-day lives of various writers, poets, composers and artists, and published by Hodder & Stoughton.

[7] May Byron's biographies were generally well-received, though some critics could not tell if they were first-hand or fiction based on research.

[8] The books went on to inspire others, and her biography A Day with Shakespeare (written under the pseudonym "Maurice Clare") was particularly influential for James Joyce in writing Ulysses.