[2] Like his competitor, Dr. Rosenbach, Wells was active in the inter-war years in London and Europe buying up expensive books that could be sold to wealthy clients in the United States.

[4] Wells was involved in a long-running rivalry with Rosenbach, who tended to get the limelight for buying the most expensive item at an auction which he then sold on direct to the public.

The book itself was undistinguished but John Harrison Stonehouse of Sotheran dealers had commissioned Sangorski to provide the most luxurious binding possible.

Wells gave it to a passenger on the RMS Titanic to transport to the United States, and the book was lost when the ship sank.

[2] Another notable work that Wells handled was the original manuscript for Richard Brinsley Sheridan's The School for Scandal.

Wells commissioned A. Edward Newton to write a five-page essay, "A Noble Fragment, Being a Leaf of the Gutenberg Bible (1450–1455)", which was included with each sale.

Wells' decision to sell the leaves individually allowed major institutions and universities to purchase pages that they were missing from their own editions of the Gutenberg Bible.

[3] In 1939, Wells was embroiled in legal action after John Hayward discovered that Lord Victor Rothschild's first edition of Henry Fielding's Tom Jones was not authentic.