Pauline M. Royce was born in Rutland, Vermont, in 1881 and worked as a painter, set designer, interior decorator, and writer in New York and Massachusetts. She studied at the Burnham School in Northampton, pursued Japanese art studies in Boston, traveled through major European art centers, and later completed training in interior decoration at Columbia University. Her painting studies continued with New York impressionist Bolton Brown, whose studio she later managed.

Royce designed stage settings for women’s groups in New York, produced paintings and drawings, lectured, and worked in antiques. Writing under the pen name Paul Roy, she contributed fiction and articles to numerous magazines, also publishing verse under her own name. She served on the editorial staff of a child-welfare magazine in Philadelphia and lectured widely on child-welfare issues.

She died in New York City on January 29, 1917, following surgery, and was buried in Rutland, Vermont, at Evergreen Cemetery.