Over the course of a long and prolific career, Leighton wrote and illustrated numerous books praising the virtues of the countryside and the people who worked the land. She was the first woman to produce a book on wood-engraving ("Wood-Engraving and Woodcuts", 1932). This played an important part in popularizing the medium. During the 1920s and 1930s, as the world around her became increasingly technological, industrial and urban, Leighton continued to paint rural working men and women. These included a 1938 poster design for London Transport promoting weekend walks in the countryside. In the 1950s she created designs for Steuben Glass, Wedgwood plates, several stained-glass windows for churches in New England and for the transept windows of the Cathedral of Saint Paul (Worcester, Massachusetts).