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Philip James Ayres (28 July 1944 – 15 August 2021)^[1] was an Australian biographer and literary historian, described by High Court Justice Dyson Heydon as "one of the best biographers this country has ever produced".^[2] Of German and Anglo-Scottish cultural heritage, he was a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society (London), a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities, and a recipient of the Centenary Medal in 2001 for contributions to literature.^[3]

Education

Ayres was born in Lobethal, South Australia. He attended Adelaide Boys High School and the University of Adelaide (PhD 1971). He taught at the University of Adelaide, Monash University (1972 to 2006), Vassar College and Boston University.^[4]

Academic work

Ayres' biography subjects included Malcolm Fraser,^[5] Douglas Mawson,^[6] former Australian Chief Justice Sir Owen Dixon,^[7] Sydney's late-19th-century, early-20th-century Catholic Archbishop Patrick Francis Moran^[8] and Sir Ninian Stephen^[9] (who had been Australia's Governor-General for most of the 1980s). His last book, a collection of biographical vignettes built around personal one-on-one encounters with numerous internationally significant people quite aside from the subjects of his biographies, was Private Encounters in the Public World.^[10]

His literary-historical books include Classical Culture and the Idea of Rome in Eighteenth-Century England.^[11] According to WorldCat, the book is held in 398 libraries.^[12] He was the editor of the two-volume Clarendon Press edition of Shaftesbury's Characteristicks.^[13]

The British Law Quarterly Review described his Owen Dixon as a "conspicuous success" in marrying "distinguished scholarship and narrative skills",^[14] while the Australian Law Journal devoted a 14-page section to complimentary analyses of the same book.^[15] Fortunate Voyager, the account of Sir Ninian Stephen's life, displays similar research and narrative methodologies. The other biographies have also received generally excellent reviews in the relevant professional journals,^[16] although the author has been chastised by one (clerical) critic for declining to moralise his avowedly non-moral and objectivist presentation of character.^[17]

He also wrote first-hand accounts of several conflict zones, having travelled with Malcolm Fraser in South Africa (1986)^[18] and Somalia (1992),^[19] and with the Hezb-i-Islami jihadists in Afghanistan in 1987.^[20]

The lists below of learned articles and book reviews are representative of published works too extensive to be noticed here.

Bibliography

Books

Ayres, Philip J. (1977). Tourneur : The Revenger's Tragedy. London: Edward Arnold.
Munday, Anthony (1980). Philip J. Ayres (ed.). The English Roman life. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Ayres, Philip J. (ed.) (1987) Ben Jonson: Sejanus His Fall. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
— (1987). Malcolm Fraser: A Biography . Richmond, Vic.: William Heinemann Australia. Foreword by Valéry Giscard d'Estaing.
— (1997). Classical Culture and the Idea of Rome in Eighteenth-Century England. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
— (ed.) (1999) Anthony Ashley Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury: Characteristics of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
— (1999). Mawson: A Life. Carlton, Vic.: Miegunyah Press.
— (2003). Owen Dixon. Carlton, Vic.: Miegunyah Press.
— (2007). Owen Dixon (revised edition). Carlton, Vic.: Miegunyah Press.
— (2007). Prince of the Church : Patrick Francis Moran, 1830-1911. Carlton, Vic.: Miegunyah Press.
— (2013) Fortunate Voyager: The Worlds of Ninian Stephen. Carlton, Vic.: Miegunyah Press.
— (2019). Private Encounters in the Public World. Brisbane, Qld.: Connor Court.
_ (ed.) (2021). The Washington Diaries of Owen Dixon 1942-1944. Sydney, NSW: The Federation Press.

References

^ "Ayres, Philip". The Age. Retrieved 20 September 2021.
^ Dyson Heydon, review of Ayres, Fortunate Voyager: The Worlds of Ninian Stephen (2013), in Quadrant, May 2014, p. 26.
^ https://honours.pmc.gov.au/honours/awards/1126723 (accessed 4 March 2018)
^ Michael Lawriwsky, "Philip Ayres: Scholar and Adventurer", Quadrant, December 2021, pp. 83–88.
^ Malcolm Fraser: A Biography (Heinemann, Melbourne, 1987).
^ Mawson: A Life (Miegunyah/Melbourne University Press, Carlton, 1999).
^ Owen Dixon (Miegunyah/Melbourne University Press, Carlton, 2003; 2004; rev. edn 2007).
^ Prince of the Church: Patrick Francis Moran 1830-1911 (Miegunyah/Melbourne University Press, Carlton, 2007).
^ Fortunate Voyager: The Worlds of Ninian Stephen (Miegunyah/Melbourne University Press, Carlton, 2013).
^ Private Encounters in the Public World (Connor Court, Brisbane, 2019).
^ Classical Culture and the Idea of Rome in Eighteenth-Century England (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1997).
^ WorldCat author record
^ Anthony Ashley Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury, Characteristics of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times (2 vols, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1999).
^ Tom Bingham, review of Owen Dixon, (2005) 121 Law Quarterly Review, 154-158 at 154.
^ (2003) 77 Australian Law Journal, 682-696 (High Court Centenary number).
^ Mawson: its "high level of research and carefully crafted writing make it a worthy addition to Australian scientific biography"—Brigid Hains, Historical Records of Australian Science, 13, ii (2000), 226-228; see also Rod Beecham in Australian Book Review, June/July 2004, p. 35: "Ayres's great virtue as a biographer is his scrupulous reliance on primary sources, which he has researched meticulously. He can also be funny."
^ Frank Brennan, "Tales from the Bench", Eureka Street, July/August 2003, 37-39.
^ "South African Diary", final chapter of Ayres, Malcolm Fraser.
^ Quadrant, vol. 36, no. 12, December 1992, pp. 9-14.
^ "Khost: The Crucial Siege", The Age, Saturday Extra, 28 November 1987, pp. 1-6.