Literary critic, periodical editor, translator, and educator.

William Morton Payne was born in 1858 in Newburyport, Massachusetts to Emma M. and Henry Morton Payne. He attended public schools in Newburyport and Chicago, but did not go on to college and was self-educated after high school. He became assistant librarian of the Chicago Public Library in 1874, but left this position to teach in the Chicago public schools. He continued to work in the public schools throughout his other career incarnations, and also as a lecturer of English at the University of Wisconsin, the University of Kansas, and the University of Chicago. He was literary editor for the Chicago Morning News from 1884 to 1892 while also contributing writing to the Dial. He became associate editor of the Dial in 1892 and retained this position until 1914 when he sold his stock in the publication. As literary critic, he specialized in modern literature and poetry. He was a respected scholar of Scandinavian literature and translated the work of Norwegian poet Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson. Despite his lack of formal university education, he edited volumes such as American Literary Criticism and English in the American University. His lead writing for the Dial was collected in three volumes, Little Leaders, Editorial Echoes, and Various Views. He published one volume of poems in his lifetime, Richard Wagner, A Cycle of Sonnets.

Payne was also actively involved in several Chicago social clubs, including the Cliff Dwellers and the Chicago French Club, and was secretary-treasurer for the Twentieth Century Club for 26 years. He never married and passed away after a long illness on July 12, 1919.