Bppletons' /IDontblv? bulletin. 



was the form in which it was being 

 published serially in English and Ameri- 

 can journals, without the revision usually 

 considered necessary for any piece of 

 writing before its appearance as a book, 

 and especially desirable in the case of the 

 present work. . . . When health and op- 

 portunity allowed, I did my best to make 

 the story worthy of the reception it had 

 received by an effort to lift its literary 

 execution to the level of its artistic mo- 

 tive. With these alterations and with 

 amendments made very recently I am 

 now offering The Scapegoat to Ameri- 

 can readers practically, I think, as a new 

 book, certainly as a book which is in 

 great part new." 



* 



Edward Noyes Westcott, 

 Author of "David Harum." 



In response to numerous inquiries 

 concerning the personality of the late 

 Edward Noyes Westcott, the author of 

 " David Harum," Mr. Forbes Heer- 

 mans, who wrote the preface for the 

 novel and who was intimately ac- 

 quainted with the author, was invited 

 by the editor of " The New York 

 Times's Saturday Review " to prepare 

 a brief sketch of Mr. Westcott. He re- 

 sponded as follows : 



" The interest which is always felt in 

 the life and personality of the writer of a 

 successful hook originates, it would seem, 

 in the sympathetic and kindly desire of his 

 readers for a more intimate acquaintance 

 with him than they can obtain through his 

 fictitious characters. This is surely not 

 mere curiosity, but rather an expression of 



genuine friendliness, and for that reason 

 it is one that may be unhesitatingly grati- 

 fied. Usually the manner of preparing such 

 a biography as these conditions require may 

 be left, in some degree, to the approval of 

 the subject of it, but in the present case 

 that is not possible, for the author of ' Da- 

 vid Harum ' died six months before his 

 book was published. Therefore, what is 

 here set down concerning him must err 

 rather on the side of reticence than of 

 frankness. 



" Edward Noyes Westcott was born in 

 Syracuse, N. Y., September 3, 1847, and 

 died there of consumption, March 31, i8q8. 

 His father, Dr. Amos Westcott, was one 

 of the conspicuous citizens of that city a 

 generation or more ago, and during part of 

 the civil war was its mayor. Edward re- 

 ceived the education that was given to most 

 youths of that day and locality, which 

 ended with the high school, and then, in- 

 stead of going to college, as he greatly de- 

 sired to do, he found it necessary to enter 

 upon a business career. Although Nature 

 had endowed him with the true artistic 

 temperament, keenly sensitive to all im- 

 pressions, both subjective and objective, he 

 nevertheless became a bank clerk, an occu- 

 pation that was, during the time of the war 

 and the decade following it, one of deadly 

 monotony, occasionally varied by days of 

 terrific storm and stress. But here as else- 

 where he did his work thoroughly and, 

 when the chances offered, as brilliantly as 

 if it had been his true vocation. In this 

 way he passed the active years of his life ; 

 first as bank clerk, teller, and cashier ; then 

 as head of the firm of Westcott & Abbott, 

 bankers and brokers, and finally as registrar 

 and financial expert of the Syracuse Water 

 Commission. 



" In personal appearance Mr. Westcott 

 was tall and slender, of a graceful figure ; 

 and his handsome, intellectual face would, 

 upon occasions, light up with a smile of 

 cordial friendship that was extremely at- 

 tractive and magnetic. He was married to 

 Jane Dows, a niece of the late David I lows, 

 of New York. Mrs. Westcott died in 1890, 

 leaving three children, Harold, Violet, and 

 Philip, the last two being still under age. 



" It was in music, perhaps, that Mr. 

 Westcott achieved his greatest non-com- 



9 



