He was educated a local schools until he turned sixteen and began working in a bank. Westcott remained in that career for the rest of his life.
David Harum Westcott began writing
David Harum, a novel set in
upstate New York, while on leave from his banking career because he was sick with chronic
tuberculosis. The book was rejected several times, but in December 1897 reached
Ripley Hitchcock, an editor at
D. Appleton & Company. Hitchcock edited the book, which was eventually published in September 1898, and became an immediate best-seller. Westcott had died several months earlier. == Death ==