Edward Noyes Westcott

Background

Edward Noyes Westcott was born in Syracuse, N. Y. , the third child of Amos and Clara (Babcock) Westcott.

Education

Edward attended the Syracuse schools until he was sixteen.

Career

He became a junior clerk in the Mechanics' Bank of Syracuse. From 1866 to 1868 he worked in the New York office of the Mutual Life Insurance Company, returning to Syracuse to become discount clerk in the Second National Bank. After its dissolution he was a teller in the First National Bank, and later cashier of Wilkinson & Company, bankers. In 1880 he organized the firm of Westcott & Abbott, bankers and brokers, which flourished until it was involved in the failure of Wilkinson & Company. Westcott then became secretary to the Syracuse Water Commission, serving until June 1895, when failing health compelled him to retire. In 1874 he married Jane Dows of Buffalo, who at her death in 1890 left two sons and a daughter. The summer of 1895 Westcott spent at Lake Meacham in the Adirondacks, where, suffering from tuberculosis, he began the work by which he is chiefly known - David Harum, A Story of American Life. The nucleus of the story - David's cancellation of the Widow Cullom's mortgage - was completed there. The latter part of the winter of 1895-96 he spent near Naples at Alexander Henry Davis' home overlooking the Bay, the Villa Violante of David Harum. Through the following fifteen months of illness and increasing weakness, Westcott continued with genuine delight to recount David's adventures and remarks, and towards the end of 1896 completed them. After thorough revision the manuscript began its now proverbial rounds to New York, Boston, and Chicago, being refused by six well-known publishers. "It's vulgar and smells of the stables, " commented one publisher's reader. On December 23, 1897, the manuscript was received by D. Appleton & Company, and was accepted by Ripley Hitchcock on January 17, 1898, in a cordial letter to the author. To abridgment and slight rearrangement the author consented, conscious that publication would probably be posthumous. He died on March 31, not suspecting that appreciation and fame were near.

Achievements

• Six months after his death, September 23, 1898, David Harum was published. Its popularity was immediate and prolonged. By January 1, 1899, the book was in its sixth large printing, and by Feburary 1, 1901, after two years at or near the top of the lists of best-sellers, over 400, 000 copies had been sold, a record then surpassed only by In His Steps and Trilby. Thirty-five years after its appearance more than a million copies had been sold, and, for the most of this period, of books published in America it stood second in popularity only to Quo Vadis. In 1900 David Harum was dramatized, William H. Crane playing David for more than two years. Crane also played the leading rôle in a motion-picture version. Westcott's short story, The Teller, in which masquerades the John Lenox of David Harum, was published, along with a selection from his letters, in 1901. Two poems, "Sonnet" and "Chacun . .. son bon Go-t, " appeared in Harper's Magazine, January 1900. He wrote occasionally on matters of current political and financial interest, and prepared wholly or in part some of the pamphlets issued by the Reform Club of New York, of which he was a member.

Personality

An excellent singer, he also composed the words and music for several songs.

Interests

• Westcott's avocation was music.

Connections

Father:

Amos Westcott

A dentist and the first president of the New York State Dental Society.

Mother:

Clara (Babcock) Westcott.