Gabriel Wells was one of the foremost American book dealers during the period of extensive buying by wealthy collectors from the early twentieth century through the post-Depression years. The citation accompanying the honorary doctorate awarded him on 8 June 1935 by Rutgers University celebrates his importance as a bookman, author, philanthropist, international authority on rare books, and, above all, a man of integrity.

Wells was born Gabriel Weiss in Balassa-Gyarmat, Hungary, on 24 January 1862 to Moritz and Helene Pissk Weiss. Educated in Budapest, Wells mastered eight languages--he was particularly interested in German, which he learned in order to read the German philosophers in the original--but when he arrived in Boston at the age of thirty he could speak barely a word of English. Wells became a protégé of Harvard professor of psychology, William James; he would dedicate his Gentle Reactions (1923) "To the Memory of William James: A man...