Abel's work on elliptic functions was unappreciated by the referee Fourier. I think this is the Abel part of the famous Abel-Jacobi theorem.

All in all, Abel could not find appreciation in his lifetime, and by the time he got a decent job, he was ill with tuberculosis and died in obscurity, without even money for a treatment, and without being able to marry his sweetheart Christina.

I remember all this from E. T. Bell. I am however unable to dig up an online reference.