He was born in Haverhill, Massachusetts, seven days after the arrival of Halley's Comet. He graduated from Brown University in 1931.

He penned an important early appreciation of horror writer H.P. Lovecraft, "His Own Most Fantastic Creation: Howard Phillips Lovecraft" (1944). Another essay on Lovecraft, "Lovecraft as a Poet", first appeared in Rhode Island on Lovecraft (1945) and was reprinted elsewhere in a revised version as "A Parenthesis on Lovecraft as Poet." He corresponded with H. P. Lovecraft, and in 1950, advised J. Warren Thomas about a biographical thesis. He was editor of The Providence Journal and Evening Bulletin

Winfield Scott was primarily known for his journals. He published these as A Dirty Hand (1958). He corresponded with Ruth Lechlitner.

Several of his poems appear in the book, "Don't Forget To Fly", an anthology (that includes many other famous works) collected by Paul B. Janeczko, Bradbury Press, published in 1981.

He committed suicide after a domestic quarrel in 1968.

Books of poems

• Wind the Clock (1941)
• The Sword on the Table (1942)
• To Marry Strangers (1945)
• Mr. Whittier and Other Poems (1948)
• The Dark Sister (1958)
• Scrimshaw (1959)
• Collected Poems 1937-1962 (1962)

Diaries

• A Dirty Hand (University of Texas Press, 1969)

Essays

• Exiles and Fabrications (Doubleday, 1961).