[2] Michael Phillips graduated in 1969 from Humboldt State University with a degree in physics[3] and has run independent bookstores in both California and Oregon.
[5] Phillips is recognized as one of the premier novelists of the Christian fiction boom of the 1980s,[according to whom?]
Phillips served as the general series editor for the Masterline Series of four literary monographs focused on MacDonald, including volumes by Ronald MacDonald, Rolland Hein, David Robb, and Richard Reis and brought out eighteen edited editions of MacDonald's novels between 1982 and 2006.
[6] Phillips has been credited with "the first efforts to re-introduce [MacDonald's] novels,"[7] while his Cullen Collection has been praised as "examples of the tremendous progress that has been made recently in printed versions.
"[8] John Pennington, professor of English at St. Norbert College, raised concerns about Phillips's attempts "to promote MacDonald as a conservative Christian whose message is needed to ward off a godless society", while praising George MacDonald: A Writer's Life for "doggedly—in a good sense—track[ing] down the various editions of particular novels to determine what is the most reliable edition that is closest to MacDonald's vision.