Philippe was the son of a shoemaker; he was ambitious to become an army officer but was refused entry to the École Polytechnique in 1894 because of his slight physique. He finally found employment in the Paris municipal service as a shop inspector.

His novels either describe the Paris poor or are set in his native province of Bourbonnais. Of the first group, the most notable is Bubu de Montparnasse (1901), which tells the story of a young prostitute's relationship with her procurer and with a young intellectual who tries to save her. The novels of rural poverty include La Mère et l'enfant (1900), in which the author tenderly recalls his own childhood; Le Père perdrix (1902; title page 1903), the story of an old blacksmith, reduced by illness to indigence, and of a young engineer who loses his job because of his independent outlook; and the unfinished Charles Blanchard (1913), an evocation of the unhappy childhood of the author's father. Philippe's novels are distinguished by pity for the social outcast and by his power to depict the misery of poverty.