Dr Philip Ayres details Sir Ninian Stephen’s prewar life in Europe, from the Highlands of Scotland to the resorts of France and Germany, from the ski runs above Montreux to the Nuremberg Rally of 1938. The key influence for this formative period was Nina Mylne, a woman of extreme views, whose means and influence shaped his formation and made possible his future, a future he shaped for himself.

Philip Ayres is the author of Fortunate Voyager: The Worlds of Ninian Stephen. He is also the author of Owen Dixon, Malcolm Fraser, Mawson, Prince of the Church (Cardinal Moran), and works on eighteenth-century England 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.