As a child Arthur showed a precocious talent for drawing, and when, at the age of seventeen, he became a clerk in the Westminster Fire Office he also worked at the Lambeth School of Art as a part-time student.
Rackham's first published drawing appeared in 1884. In 1892 he risked giving up his clerkship to try to make a living by illustration. For several years he worked on the staff of the Westminster Budget but turned more and more to book illustration.
In 1903 he married a fellow artist, Edyth Starkie, and it is from shortly after this date that he developed into the famous illustrator whose work is still sought and admired. Arthur Rackham died in 1939, leaving one daughter.