Mabbott was born and raised in
New York City. He was a
Phi Beta Kappa graduate of
Columbia University, earning his AB (1920), AM (1921), and Ph.D. (1923) in
English. After graduating from Columbia, Mabbott taught English literature and composition at
Northwestern University. In 1928, he left Northwestern to teach at
Brown. He was there for one year before accepting a position at
Hunter College in New York City. Mabbott remained at Hunter as a professor of English and research scholar until 1966. His final two years were spent as a visiting professor at
St. John's University. He may be best remembered as an expert on
Edgar Allan Poe, whose works he was in the process of compiling when he died on May 15, 1968, at the age of 69. During his studies, he identified some
poetry of Poe originally published anonymously as well as never published manuscripts. His wife took over the project after his death and saw it through to completion. In 1967, during research for
The Complete Works of Poe, Mabbott discovered a lost
Walt Whitman poem titled "No Turning Back", one of only four he is known to have written in 1842. Mabbott also appreciated the horror writing of
H. P. Lovecraft. One of his essays on Lovecraft can be found in
Lovecraft Remembered. ==References==