 He was engaged by publisher Andrew Melrose to illustrate W. E. Cule's fairy tale "Mabel's Prince Wonderful" (1899) - his first major book illustration commission.Around the same time, the Decadent publisher Leonard Smithers commissioned him to illustrate Nigel Tourneur's "Hidden Witchery".Mein married Frances Elizabeth Sinclair in December 1902, in Berwick, and they settled in Fulham, London.