Newell only completed one term at the Art Students League, believing that formal instruction would harm his unique creativity. When he was known among national editors, he returned to Illinois. He married Leona Dow Ashcroft in 1884 and returned to the New York region after moving around for several years, settling in the town of
Leonia, New Jersey, reportedly named for Newell's wife. In 1893 he published
Topsys and Turvys, a collection of poems and images which could be viewed upside-down or right-side-up.
The Hole Book (1908) featured a literal hole at the center of each page to indicate the trajectory of a bullet.
The Slant Book (1910), was printed with a
rhomboid shape to better represent the hill down which a runaway baby carriage careens in the story. Newell was granted two patents in 1909 and 1910, based on the tactic "the shape of the book itself [...] to characterize the illustration contained therein" that he used for
The Slant Book (U.S. patent #970,943) as well as the tactic used in
The Hole Book (U.S. patent #1028130A). Original artwork for
The Slant Book is held in the
Kerlan Collection of the University of Minnesota. Newell wrote
The Rocket Book (1912), which depicts scenes along the trajectory of a rocket, with a hole in the middle of each page to physically represent its path. A 2025 blog post from the
Library of Congress praised it as "a story beyond illustrations, one that travels into the book’s construction". Newell illustrated many works of other authors, including
Mark Twain (
Innocents Abroad),
Stephen Crane (
The Monster and Other Stories), and
Lewis Carroll (
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and
Through the Looking Glass & What Alice Found There). He collaborated with the artist
Gustave Verbeek, whose work has been described as an influence on Newell. == Personal life ==