3 January 2016
Arthur Cash 1922-2016
Arthur H. Cash, who wrote a definitive two-volume biography of the English novelist Laurence Sterne and became a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2007 for his biography of the 18th-century English radical John Wilkes, died 29th December 2016 in Watch Hill, R.I. He was 94.
The death was confirmed by his wife, the novelist Mary Gordon.
Professor Cash, who taught for more than 40 years at the State University of New York at New Paltz, caught Sterne fever while an undergraduate at the University of Chicago. “He said that ‘Tristram Shandy’ was the funniest book in the world,” Ms. Gordon said, referring to Sterne’s most famous novel. “He was very drawn to Sterne’s combination of humor and tenderness.” …
Professor Cash took an active role in the restoration of Shandy Hall, Sterne’s house in North Yorkshire, and wrote a visitor’s guide, “Laurence Sterne at Shandy Hall.” He liked to call it his most important and successful publication, noting its sales of more than 25,000.
