He was born at Cold Spring, N. Y. in 1846. Mabie was the youngest child of Sarah Colwell Mabie who was from a wealthy Scottish-English family and Levi Jeremiah Mabie, whose ancestors were French political exiles. Due to business opportunities with the opening of the Erie Canal his family moved to Buffalo, New York when he was approaching school age. At the young age of 16 he passed his college entrance examination, but waited a year before he attended Williams College (1867) and the Columbia Law School (1869).

He received honorary degrees from his own alma mater, from Union College, and from Western Reserve and Washington and Lee universities. Although he passed his bar exams in 1869 he hated both the study and practice of law. In 1876 he married Jeanette Trivett, Finally, in the summer of 1879 he was hired to work at the weekly magazine, Christian Union (renamed The Outlook in 1893), an association that lasted until his death.

In 1884 Mabie was promoted to associate editor of the Christian Union and then elected to the Author's Club, whose members included such men of established reputation as George Cary Eggleston, Richard Watson Gilder, Brander Matthews, and Edmund Clarence Stedman.

Many of Mabie's books are available at Project Gutenberg.

“Blessed is the season which engages the whole world in a conspiracy of love.”

“Don't be afraid of opposition. Remember, a kite rises against, not with the wind.”

• Norse Stories, Retold from the Eddas (1882)
• Nature in New England (1890)
• My Study Fire (two series, 1890 and 1894)
• Short Studies in Literature (1891)
• Under the Trees and Elsewhere (1891)
• Essays in Literary Interpretation (1892)
• Essays on Nature and Culture (1896)
• Essays on Books and Culture (1897)
• Essays on Work and Culture (1898)
• The Life of the Spirit (1899)
• William Shakespeare, Poet, Dramatist, and Man (1900)
• A Child of Nature (1901)
• Works and Days (1902)
• Parables of Life (1902)
• " Famous Stories Every Child Should Know" (1903)
• In Arcady (1903) Published by Dodd, Mead and Company
• Backgrounds of Literature (1904)
• Introduction to Notable Poems (1909)
• American Ideals, Character, and Life (1913)
• Japan To-Day and To-Morrow (1914)

Various books for children were written or edited by him (1905-08).