Philip Ayres has been described as "one of the greatest biographers Australia has produced” (Dyson Heydon, in a review of Fortunate Voyager). He is the author of Owen Dixon, of Malcolm Fraser, of Mawson (still the only whole-of-life biography of its subject aside from Lady Mawson's), of Prince of the Church (on Cardinal Moran, the first Australian cardinal), of Fortunate Voyager: The World of Ninian Stephen and of numerous scholarly books and articles on English eighteenth-century culture including Classical Culture and the Idea of Rome in Eighteenth Century England. He is a Fellow of both the Royal Historical Society of London and the Australian Academy of the Humanities, and a recipient of the Centenary Medal for contributions to literature.