Jeffrey Archer’s life was as dramatic as many of his novels. The former Conservative MP rose to become deputy party chairman before a perjury conviction sent him to prison in 2001. He later returned to the House of Lords and continued his hugely successful writing career.
BY PC Bureau
October 6: Jeffrey Archer, the bestselling British novelist and former Conservative politician whose books sold more than 300 million copies worldwide, has died aged 86.
Publisher HarperCollins said Archer died suddenly and peacefully at his home on Monday, between writing sessions. His more than five-decade career produced some of the world’s most widely read popular fiction, including Kane and Abel and the Clifton Chronicles. Many of his novels were set in Wellington, Somerset, which he considered home.
Born in north London on April 15, 1940, Archer moved with his family to Weston-super-Mare as a child. The family later bought a house from the mother of comedian John Cleese.
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Archer entered politics in 1969 when he was elected Conservative MP for Louth in Lincolnshire. He served in Parliament for five years and later became deputy chairman of the Conservative Party.
His political career was dramatically derailed by a legal scandal. In 2001, Archer was sentenced to four years in prison after being convicted of perjury and perverting the course of justice. The case arose from a 1987 libel action against the Daily Star, in which he had been awarded £500,000 after claiming the newspaper had falsely reported that he had visited a prostitute. A court later found that he had lied about his alibi and attempted to interfere with the course of justice.
Released in 2003, Archer subsequently returned to the House of Lords. He retired from the upper house in 2024.
His final novel, Adam and Eve, is due to be published this week.
HarperCollins described Archer as a “master storyteller” for whom his readers meant everything. The publisher said he had been at London’s Leicester Square Theatre on Sunday, signing copies of the new book alongside broadcaster Gyles Brandreth.
Brandreth wrote on X that the two had appeared together the previous day to mark the publication of Archer’s final novel, which the author had said would be his last.
He described Archer as “funny, engaging and self-deprecating” and said the novelist had been in “ebullient form” before a packed audience.
“A great storyteller to the last,” Brandreth wrote.
