Born on a farm in Indiana, Abe moved east to seek his fortune and his education. After a brief stint in Boston as a journeyman shipwright on the wharf, Abe stowed away on a ship heading to London. He finagled – more likely charmed – his way into Oxford, and had some of the highest marks of any American student.

Upon returning to the States, Abe served on the faculty at Brown University in Providence for over two decades, then took over the associate’s chair at Yale for just over eight years. Abe took a sabbatical from teaching for “field research” for a period of nearly 13 years, spanning the globe and going on numerous expeditions to the Amazon Basin. He was diagnosed with a nerve condition while on his last expedition that forced him back to the States for a recovery period of 18 months, during which time he was offered the head chair of Occult studies at Miskatonic.