Dates

• Existence: 1898-1968

Biography

Thomas Ollive Mabbott (1898-1968) 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 PhD (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 only one year before accepting a position at Hunter College and moving back to New York City. Mabbott remained at Hunter as a professor of English and research scholar. His work as a teacher is profiled in Patricia Edwards Clyne's article "Thomas O. Mabbott as Teacher" (Books at Iowa 34 (April 1981). Mabbott also provided two essays for Books at Iowa, "Observations on Poets and Poetry" (29) and "The Books in the House of Usher" (34); Maureen Cobb Mabbott contributed "My Last Bookshelf" to issue 38.   TOM, as he was known, was a renowned Milton scholar but also studied Walt Whitman, Thomas Chatterton, and E.C. Pinkney. However, he is best remembered as an expert on Edgar Allan Poe. Mabbott was compiling the complete writings of Poe when he died on May 15, 1968, at the age of sixty-nine. He was survived by his widow, Maureen Cobb Mabbott, and their daughter, Jane Adele.

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