Many of his early pictures show landscapes, before he started to build a reputation as a genre painter from 1808 on, painting mostly everyday scenes from rural life. He also illustrated children's books including the first edition of Charles and Mary Lamb's "Tales from Shakespeare" in 1807; William Roscoe's entertaining poem "The Butterfly's Ball, and the Grasshopper's Feast" in the same year; and a sequel to the latter by Catherine Ann Dorset. Some of these were for the Juvenile Library of William Godwin and Mary Jane Clairmont; Godwin in turn wrote, under a pseudonym, an account of Mulready's early life, suitable for children.