Although her best work is strongly personalised with erotic female imagery, she resisted the label of ‘lesbian writer’, preferring to convey the universality of human love.

When German troops invaded Belgium after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914, her family fled to Ipswich, England, where Sarton's maternal grandmother lived.

[citation needed] Sarton won a scholarship to Vassar but felt drawn to the theater after seeing Eva Le Gallienne perform in The Cradle Song.

She joined Le Gallienne's Civic Repertory Theatre in New York City and spent a year working as an apprentice.

[3] In 1945 in Santa Fe, New Mexico, she met Judith "Judy" Matlack[5] (September 9, 1898 – December 22, 1982), who became her partner for the next thirteen years.

Her final book, Coming Into Eighty (1995), published after her death, covers the year from July 1993 to August 1994, describing her attitude of gratitude for life as she wrestled with the experience of aging.

When publishing her novel Mrs. Stevens Hears the Mermaids Singing in 1965, she feared that writing openly about lesbianism would lead to a diminution of the previously established value of her work.

[2] Margot Peters' controversial authorized biography (1998) revealed May Sarton as a complex individual who often struggled in her relationships.

Self-absorbed and insensitive, May Sarton wooed others with extravagant attentions, only to betray and humiliate them later -- 'with scant regard,' Ms. Peters observes, 'for the chaos left in her wake.