David Dwight Wells

Born in 1868, David Dwight Wells was an American writer remembered for a handful of novels from the late 19th century. His known works include His Lordship's Leopard, Her Ladyship's Elephant, and Parlous Times: A Novel of Modern Diplomacy, all of which suggest a taste for comic invention, adventure, and social or political play.

Reliable public records available here are sparse, but they do show that Wells was active in literary circles of his day and that Theodore Roosevelt corresponded with him in 1898. That small glimpse, along with the themes of his fiction, places him in the lively world of American letters at the end of the Victorian era.

Wells died in 1900, still very young. Though he is not widely known today, his surviving books have remained accessible through major digital libraries, giving modern readers a chance to rediscover a witty, curious voice from the fin de siècle.