Philip Ardagh was born in 1961, in Kent, England, where he grew up with one brother. Ardagh was educated privately at five different schools including The King's School. He did not apply to go to university but got a place on what was then Britain's only advertising copywriting course at Watford College of Art.

He was christened at St Paul's Cathedral in London by the Canon Residentiary, Chancellor and Chapter Treasurer, Frederick Hood, who co-wrote, with poet laureate John Betjeman, the introduction to the book Folly Farm by philosopher Cyril Joad.

After a placement at the London advertising agency, Darcy McManus & Masius, he found full-time employment at the McCann-Erickson advertising agency, located beneath what is now known as BT Tower. There he first met children's author Anthony Horowitz, who joined the agency just as he was leaving. He later became a library assistant for the London Borough of Lewisham Leisure Services (Downham Library).

===Eddie Dickeoriginally written as letters sent to his nephew Ben.

Ardagh has achieved both critical and popular acclaim for his work. Set in Victorian England, his Eddie Dickens books have been described as "A cross between Dickens and Monty Python" (The Guardian) and he himself as "a national treasure" (The Independent).

Popular in Germany, he has won both the Luchs (Lynx) Prize and the Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis. Although some American critics accused Ardagh of ‘jumping on the Lemony Snicket bandwagon’, Ardagh wrote the book as letters to his nephew Ben long before the first Snicket book was published. Ardagh once described the Snicket books as being more an homage to Edgar Allan Poe, while his own Eddie Dickens books were an homage to Charles Dickens. Although his book's title The Rise of the House of McNally is derived from Poe's The Fall of the House of Usher.

The movie rights to the Eddie Dickens books were optioned by Circle of Confusion's Jason Lust for Warner Bros, with director [[.

Unlikely Exploits

Ardagh embarked on Unlikely Exploits, a three-book series about the fall and rise of the downtrodden McNally family. In the first paragraph of the first chapter of the first book, The Fall of Fergal, young Fergal McNally falls to his death from a hotel window. It was serialized BBC Radio 4.

The second book, Heir of Mystery, saw the introduction of Mr Maggs, a man with a head the shape of a pumpkin and with a shark's-tooth smile. Mr Maggs's Manifesto of Change is an example of Ardagh’s quirky trademark style, with such suggested changes as moving the letter Q further down the alphabet, nearer to X, Y and Z, “where it rightfully belongs” and banning the word "cruet" as the collective term for salt and pepper.

The third and final Unlikely Exploit is The Rise of the House of McNally. The McNallys’ powers are finally revealed and the three books are tied together.

Unlikely Exploits was illustrated by David Roberts, who also illustrated the Eddie Dickens series.

Grubtown Tales

Just before the Bologna Children's Book Fair 2008, it was announced that Ardagh had signed a deal with his publisher Faber & Faber to write three Grubtown Tales: books for young children set in the fictitious (and rather grubby) town of Grubtown. All three were set to be published in 2009.

Other

Ardagh has written two humorous books for adults: The Not-So-Very-Nice Goings-On At Victoria Lodge: Without Illustrations By The Author and The Silly Side of Sherlock Holmes: A Brand New Adventure Using A Bunch of Old Pictures.

The first uses pictures taken from the 19th-century Girls' Own Paper and the second uses illustrations of the original Sherlock Holmes stories taken from The Strand Magazine. A third, The Scandalous Life of the Lawless Sisters: Criminally Illustrated With What Was To Hand uses pictures from Punch from the year 1880 and is due for publication in late 2008. He is also a regular reviewer of children's books for The Guardian and has been a judge for the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize.

Children's Fiction:

• Awful End (US: A House Called Awful End) [The Eddie Dickens Trilogy] (2000)
• Dreadful Acts [The Eddie Dickens Trilogy] (2001)
• Terrible Times [The Eddie Dickens Trilogy] (2002)
• Dubious Deeds [The Further Adventures of Eddie Dickens]
• Horrendous Habits [The Further Adventures of Eddie Dickens]
• Final Curtain [The Further Adventures of Eddie Dickens]
• The Fall of Fergal [Unlikely Exploits]
• Heir of Mystery [Unlikely Exploits]
• The Rise of the House of McNally [Unlikely Exploits]
• Stinking Rich and Just Plain Stinky [Grubtown Tales]
• The Far From Great Escape [Grubtown Tales]
• The Year That It Rained Cows [Grubtown Tales]
• High In the Clouds (with Sir Paul McCartney & Geoff Dunbar)

Adult Fiction:

• The Not-So-Very-Nice Goings-On At Victoria Lodge, Without Illustrations by the Author
• The Silly Side of Sherlock Holmes, A Brand New Adventure Using A Bunch of Old Pictures

Non-fiction:

• The Hieroglyphs Handbook, Teach Yourself Ancient Egyptian
• The Archaeologist's Handbook, An Insider's Guide to Digging Up The Past
• WOW! Ideas that Changed the World
• WOW! Events that Changed the World
• WOW! Inventions that Changed the World
• WOW! Discoveries that Changed the World
• The Truth About Christmas
• The Truth About Love
• The Truth About Fairies
• Why Are Castles Castle-Shaped?
• Did Dinosaurs Snore?
• The History Detectives series (with Colin King)
• The Get A Life series
• Philip Ardagh's book of absolutely useless lists for absolutely every day of the year