Originally an actor and playwright, Lathom soon turned gothic novelist, eventually authoring over a score of novels and some half a dozen plays, including some translations and adaptations. His first novel was called The Castle of Ollada (1795). The Midnight Bell (1798) is one of the novels Isabella Thorpe plans to peruse with Catherine Morland in Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey (1818). Men and Manners (1799) is regarded as his best work.