Arthur Cash

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Arthur Hill Cash (born February 4, 1922) is an American scholar of 18th-century English literature.

Cash is best known as the author of the definitive two-volume biography of Laurence Sterne, published between 1975 and 1986. He has also written a popular biography of the 18th-century politician John Wilkes, who was influential in developing ideas concerning civil liberties in England and the United States, titled John Wilkes: Scandalous Father of Civil Liberties.

Cash taught university literature courses for forty-five years, including popular classes in the Bible and Greek and Roman Literature. He retired from the State University of New York as one of only a handful with the title of Distinguished Professor. Before that he taught at the University of Colorado, the University of New Mexico, and Colorado State University.

Cash was born in Gary, Indiana, and lived in or near Chicago for many years. Starting off as a stage actor, he joined the 108th General Hospital at the beginning of American involvement in the Second World War. He enrolled at the University of Chicago on the G.I. Bill, and completed his graduate education at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, and Columbia University. He had two children by his first marriage, to Dorothy Moore Cash, now Romni Cash. His eldest son was killed in El Salvador in 1992, and his eldest daughter is a psychologist living in Washington. He also had two children by his second marriage — his second wife is the writer Mary Gordon. His younger daughter is a graduate student at the University of California, Berkeley. His younger son lives down the street from him in New York City and works for the Children's Aid Society. Cash has five grandchildren.