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David Harum
''David Harum; A Story of American Life'' is a best-selling novel of 1899 whose principal legacy is the colloquial use of the term ''horse trading''.
==Literary significance and criticism==
Written by retired Syracuse, New York banker, Edward Noyes Westcott, the work was rejected by six publishers before being accepted for publication by D. Appleton & Company. Published in the fall of 1898, some six months after the author's death, it sold an impressive 400,000 copies during the following year.〔''Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography'' (Vol. 7, page 279 ), New York, D. Appleton & Company, 1901.〕 Although the book contains the mandatory love story, the character and philosophy of the title character, small town banker and horse trader David Harum, expressed in the dialect of 19th-century rural central New York is the focus of the book.〔A synopsis may be found in the ''Library of the World's Best Literature'' (Vol. XXX, p.569 ), Charles Dudley Warner, editor, New York, J. A. Hill & Company, (c) 1902. The New York Times book review is (here ).〕
The main appeal of the work seems to have been to businessmen, attracted by its approval of a much more relaxed code of business ethics then was presented in most novels of the time.〔A correspondent to the New York Times (pointed out ) that the book's appeal to businessmen might account, in part, for the novels large sales, noting that such men "buy what they read; they do not borrow books like women or people of limited income."〕 Harum was an inveterate horse-trader and considered engaging in the dubious practices long associated with this activity as morally justified by the expectation that similar practices would be employed by his adversary. In principle, he contended that this made horse-trading quite different from other lines of business, yet in practice most business dealings seemed to him to be a species of horse trading, justifying considerable deviation from conventional standards of probity. The fact that these sentiments were placed in the mouth of an elderly country banker—on the face of it, a clear spokesman for ''traditional values''—was particularly appealing in that it made these business ethics appear a reflection of the practices of shrewd businessmen through the ages rather than an indicator of moral degeneration.〔See "(David Harum )" in ''Fame and Fiction'' by E. A. Bennett, (), Grant Richards, 1901, especially pages 188-189.〕 Harum's version of the Golden Rule -- ''Do unto the other feller the way he'd like to do unto you, an' do it fust.''—was widely quoted,〔A notable example of the use of the maxim was by the Bisbee Daily Review on the day after the Bisbee Deportation, online (here ).〕 and the term ''horse trading'' came into use as an approbatory term for what others would deem ethically dubious business practices.
The success of the book led to the identification of some of its characters with living persons; the late author's sister felt compelled on that account to write to Publishers Weekly, declaring that while the character of ''David Harum'' himself might be called a "composite", all the others were entirely fictitious.〔''Publishers' Weekly'' Vol. LV, No. 1425 (May 20, '99), online (here ).〕 The concession concerning the main character was a necessary one: the resemblance of the fictitious ''David Harum'', banker and horse trader from the (also fictitious) central New York village of ''Homeville'', and the real David Hannum, banker and horse trader from the (real) central New York village of ''Homer'' was too great to deny.〔See ''(The Real David Harum )'' by Arthur T. Vance, New York, The Baker and Taylor Company, (c) 1900.〕 Hannum is perhaps better remembered for his role in the Cardiff Giant hoax.
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