William Hatherell's experience as a painter interested chiefly in historical and literary subjects (he exhibited his paintings at the Royal Academy beginning in 1879) made him a superb illustrator of novels and magazines. Among his literary pictures are a scene from Far from the Madding Crowd and Lorna Doone; he also painted a series of pictures on King Arthur and his knights of the Round Table.

His pictures from Romeo and Juliet suggest the painter's eye for color and composition that he brought to his illustrations. Thomas Hardy was so impressed with his drawings for Jude the Obscure that he wrote Hatherell a letter of appreciation in 1895. He also did commissioned work for several prestigious American magazines, Scribner's and Century. For Scribner's he did an illustration for Hardy's "The Fiddler of the Reels." The list of illustrations for various books and stories is too long to cite here, but some editions of various works still use his pictures. Many of the illustrations can be found by searching the WWW.