The Encyclopedia Americana (1920)/Wells, Benjamin Willis

WELLS, Benjamin Willis, American journalist and author: b. Walpole, Cheshire County, N. H., 31 Jan. 1856. He was graduated from Harvard in 1877, studied also at Berlin, was a Fellow of the Johns Hopkins University, in 1891-98 he was professor of modern languages in the University of the South (Sewanee, Franklin County, Tenn.) and from 1899 to 1912 he was a member of the staff of The Churchman (New York). His chief publications are “Modern German Literature” (1895); “Modern French Literature” (1897); and “A Century of French Fiction” (1898), historical and critical studies. He also edited numerous German and French texts, contributed largely to encyclopedias and periodicals, and edited (with W. P. Trent) “Colonial Prose and Poetry” (1902), an anthology.