Abel also acted as Ilchester lecturer on comparative lexicography at the University of Oxford and as the Berlin correspondent of the Times and the Standard.
His essay "On the antithetical meanings of primal words" (Ueber den Gegensinn der Urworte) was discussed by Sigmund Freud in an identically titled piece, which, in turn, was discussed by Jacques Derrida as a precursor to deconstruction's semantic insights.
[4] He was the son of a successful banker, Gerson Abel.
His son Curt Abel-Musgrave (1860–1938) was a writer and translator.
His grandson was noted economist Richard Musgrave.