Abbey's next collection, "Ralph, and Other Poems" (1866), also appeared at the author's expense. By then his work was appearing regularly in such national magazines as "Appleton's", the "Overland Monthly," and "Chambers'," and Abbey had become a member of literary circles locally and in New York City, some hundred miles south of Rondout. A part of the "Pfaff Group"—literary people, including Walt Whitman, Thomas Nast, and Artemus Ward (Charles Farrar Browne), who frequented the cellar of Pfaff's Café at 653 Broadway in New York City. Abbey was a friend of the naturalist John Burroughs and was active in arranging speaking engagements in Rondout for such celebrities as Mark Twain.