The Storyteller Who Couldn't Stop: Jeffrey Archer Dies at 86, Still Writing Until the End
A bestselling novelist, a disgraced politician, a convicted perjurer, and a peer of the realm — Archer lived a life as dramatic as any of his thrillers. His final novel will be published on Tuesday.
Jeffrey Archer died on Monday, suddenly and peacefully at his home, "between writing sessions," according to his publisher, HarperCollins. He was 86. His final novel, Adam and Eve, is due to be published on Tuesday.
It is, in a way, the perfect ending for a man whose life was as colorful as the characters in his books. Archer sold more than 300 million copies worldwide over a five-decade writing career, with works including Kane & Abel, the Clifton Chronicles, and the William Warwick series. His books were sold in 119 countries, and he spent a total of five-and-a-half years on the New York Times bestseller lists.
But Archer was never just an author. He was a prominent Conservative politician who became an MP at 29, a senior party official under Margaret Thatcher in the mid-1980s, and a life peer in 1992. He was also a convicted perjurer who spent two years in prison, and a man who never quite escaped the whiff of scandal.
The downfall was spectacular. In 1987, Archer sued the Daily Star tabloid over claims he had paid a sex worker for sex, winning a then-record £500,000 in damages. The trial became notorious for the judge's summing up, which famously asked the jury whether a man with such a "fragrant" wife would be "in need of cold, unloving, rubber-insulated sex in a seedy hotel."
More than a decade later, when Archer was selected as the Conservative candidate for London mayor in 1999, a former friend accused him of lying in that libel case. He was charged with perjury and perverting the course of justice, convicted in 2001, and sentenced to four years. He served two years, during which he wrote A Prison Diary.
"He was the master storyteller and an editor's dream," said Kate Elton, HarperCollins UK CEO and Archer's editor, in a statement. "Phenomenally hard-working, utterly committed to completing draft after draft to get every word as perfect as possible."
Archer was born in north London on April 15, 1940, and moved to Weston-super-Mare in Somerset as a child. He joined the Tories while a student at Oxford and won a by-election in 1969 to become MP for Louth at the age of 29. His parliamentary career ended abruptly in 1974 when he was brought to the brink of bankruptcy by the collapse of a Canadian company. He used that experience as material for his first novel, Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less.
He was due to appear at the Cheltenham Literature Festival this weekend to discuss Adam and Eve. On Sunday, he was at the Leicester Square Theatre in London, signing books for fans with broadcaster Gyles Brandreth. "Just yesterday I did a show with Jeffrey Archer to celebrate his new novel — he said it was to be his last," Brandreth wrote on X. "He was in the most wonderful, ebullient form and had such a great reception from a packed house. He was funny, engaging and self-deprecating — a great storyteller to the last."
He is survived by his wife, Mary, a scientist and chancellor of the University of Buckingham, whom he married 60 years ago. The couple had two sons and five grandchildren.
Archer once said he thought he would be Prime Minister by 35. He never made it. But he sold 300 million books, sat in the House of Lords, and wrote until the day he died. For a man who spent his life telling stories, that is not a bad ending at all.
Written by Freya Stensrud freya.stensrud@alpineweekly.com