Paula Feldman specializes in British literature of the romantic era and in Women’s Studies, and holds the C. Wallace Martin chair in English at the University of South Carolina.

Mignonette Bird Johnson was born May 14, 1874 in Memphis, Tenn. She attended the Clara Conway Institute, a Memphis girl’s school in operation from 1884-1893. Johnson graduated from Vassar College in 1896 and then married David B. Shuler, a physician at Memphis City Hospital on February 5, 1897.  Shuler was a South Carolina native and the family eventually returned there. Mignonette died January 23, 1963 in Columbia, S.C.