Career
After she sold work to the Tatler and Bystander, she was taken on by the agents Francis and Mills, leading to a long and consistently successful career. Mabel Lucie Attwell's initial career was founded on magazine illustration, which she continued throughout her life, but around 1900 she began receiving commissions for book illustration, notably for W & R Chambers and the Raphael House Library of Gift Books. She illustrated children's classics. Attwell contributed illustrations to popular periodicals such as The Tatler, The Bystander, Graphic, and The Illustrated London News. She produced advertising illustrations for clients such as Vim (cleaning product), and illustrated greeting cards as well. In 1921, J.M. Barrie personally requested her to illustrate the gift-book edition of Peter Pan. The Lucie Attwell Annual was published from 1922 to 1974, its continuance ten years after her death being made possible by extensive re-use of images, a practice established in 1920s picture books of her work.
In 1926 Shelley Potteries commissioned Mabel Lucie Attwell to produce designs for children’s china ware, following the successful sales of china decorated with designs by Hilda Cowham. She also produced a tea set. A series of small elves in various poses followed. Mabel Lucie continued to produce designs for Shelley and the ware was still being manufactured in the sixties.