Problem using dirname in a subshell

I am writing a (one-line) script which should recurse thru subdirectories. Find .txt files containing hyperlinks. Use wget to get the contents and download it in the same directory where the text file is located. Assume all text files found only contain valid hyperlinks. To test this: Create a subdirectory ./s1 Create a text file ./s1/s1.txt Contents of ./s1/s1.txt: www.google.com This is the one-liner: find . -type f -name "*.txt" -exec bash -cx "wget -i \"{}\" -P $(dirname \"{}\") " \; The problem is that $(dirname \"{}\") does not expand correctly. The bash command being excuted is: + wget -i ./s1/s1.txt -P . So $(dirname \"{}\") returns . The effect is that a new **directory** ./s1/s1.txt is created. So the downloaded file is stored as ./s1/s1.txt/index.html When I replace $(dirname \"{}\") with $(echo \"{}\") the output becomes: + wget -i ./s1/s1.txt -P ./s1/s1.txt So parameter passing as such is correct. So I assume the result dirname is not properly returned to the calling bash shell. Or dirname is not evaluated at all. When I execute only the bash command bash -cx "wget -i ./s1/s1.txt -P $(dirname ./s1/s1.txt)" (so outside the find command) the command is executed as expected: + wget -i ./s1/s1.txt -P ./s1 What is the correct way to make this one-liner work?