Originally a bookseller and printer, he also innovated in typography, commissioning an influential typeface that omitted the long s.[1] He drew the reading public to better literature by ordering attractive art to accompany the printed work.

[1] From 1769, Bell owned a bookshop in the Strand, London, the "British Library".

In addition to the extensive Poets of Great Britain, he published book sets on Shakespeare and The British Theatre.

[6][7][8] Bell died in Fulham in 1831, summed up by publisher Charles Knight as a "mischievous spirit, the very Puck of booksellers."

[2] Bell was one of the founders of the Morning Post, a London daily newspaper, in 1772.