Edward Noyes Westcott

[1] His father was professor, dentist, dental college founder, and politician Amos Westcott who served as mayor of Syracuse.

Edward's brother Frank Nash Westcott was a minister and author who wrote on Catholicism and two novels.

He was educated a local schools until he turned sixteen and began working in a bank.

[1] 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.