Louis D. Rubin, Jr. was born in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1923. He graduated from the University of Richmond (B.A.) and the Johns Hopkins University (M.A., Ph.D.). He has been executive secretary of the American Studies Association and has taught at Johns Hopkins and Hollins College, and is a professor of English at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He has been awarded Guggenheim and American Council of Learned Societies fellowships, and two of his short stories have appeared in "Best American Short Stories" collections. He is editor of the Southern Literary Studies Series