 Stephens was well known as a caricaturist, excelling especially in the humorous delineation of animals, and drew cartoons and sketches for "The Cyclopedia of Wit and Humor" (1858), a book edited by William Evans Burton, "Vanity Fair" (1859–63), "Mrs. Grundy" (1869), "Punchline" (1870), and other periodicals.He contributed artwork to Mark Twain's comic memoir, "Roughing It" and the novel "" by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner.He illustrated some children's books, including "Aesop's Fables", "Death of Cock Robin", and "The House that Jack Built"; he wrote and illustrated "The Goblin Snob" (), a satirical poem, as well as "The Comic Natural History of the Human Race" (1851).