Bestselling author and former Tory politician Jeffrey Archer has died aged 86, closing one of the most extraordinary, scandal-strewn and commercially successful careers in modern British public life.
His publisher, HarperCollins, said he died “suddenly and peacefully at his home between writing sessions”. No cause of death was immediately announced. His final novel, Adam & Eve, was published today, 50 years after his first novel. On the day before his death, he had appeared at London’s Leicester Square Theatre with Gyles Brandreth, talking about the remarkable turns of his life.
A life of comebacks
Archer’s extraordinary life took him from politics and global literary success to scandal, disgrace and prison before an equally remarkable comeback that saw him remain one of Britain’s bestselling storytellers. The boy from a small post-war flat became a sprinter, MP, millionaire novelist, disgraced Tory grandee, peer, convicted perjurer and prisoner - then simply picked himself up and started selling millions of books again.
Writing on X, Brandreth said: “Just yesterday I did a show with Jeffrey Archer to celebrate his new novel – he said it was to be his last. 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.”
The author of Kane and Abel and Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less sold more than 300 million books worldwide. Yet for millions of Britons, he was as famous for the disasters between the bestsellers: financial ruin, political resignations, sex worker Monica Coghlan, a sensational libel victory that later collapsed into disgrace, and prison for perjury.
Political rise and fall
Jeffrey Howard Archer was born in London on April 15, 1940, but grew up in Weston-super-Mare, Somerset. A scholarship took him to Wellington School in Somerset. He arrived at Oxford in 1963 to study for a diploma in education and was attached to Brasenose College. He won a Blue in athletics, became president of the university athletics club and represented Britain as a sprinter.
At Oxford, he met Mary Weeden, a chemistry student who became a distinguished scientist and later Dame Mary Archer. They married in July 1966 and remained married for 60 years. They had two sons, William and James, and five grandchildren.
Politics came quickly. He was elected to the Greater London Council in 1967 and became Conservative MP for Louth in a 1969 by-election aged 29. But in 1974, his first political career collapsed after he invested heavily in Aquablast, a Canadian company that failed amid fraud. He was left hundreds of thousands of pounds in debt and stood down from the Commons.
Scandal and imprisonment
The disaster created the novelist. Drawing on financial ruin, he wrote Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less, published in 1976. Kane and Abel, published in 1979, became his defining bestseller, selling tens of millions of copies. Margaret Thatcher brought him back to the political front line as Conservative Party deputy chairman in 1985.
A year later came the scandal that would eventually send him to prison. Archer admitted arranging for £2,000 to be given to Coghlan, a Manchester-born sex worker, after newspapers began investigating claims involving them. When the Daily Star alleged that he had, Archer sued. In 1987, he won £500,000 in damages.
In 1999, former friend Ted Francis revealed Archer had asked him to provide a false alibi before the libel case. In 2001, Archer went on trial at the Old Bailey. A jury found he had lied under oath and used fabricated evidence in the 1987 proceedings. He was convicted of two counts of perjury and two of perverting the course of justice and sentenced to four years.
He served around two years in Belmarsh, Wayland and open prison, turning the experience into three volumes of Prison Diaries. After his release in 2003, he never returned to front-line politics, although he remained a member of the House of Lords until retiring in July 2024.
Literary comeback and legacy
As a writer, however, he roared on. In his seventies, he launched the seven-volume Clifton Chronicles, followed by the William Warwick novels. Archer wrote longhand in four two-hour shifts, beginning at 6am. His novels typically went through at least 14 drafts. “There is no negotiation with the sand,” he said.
Kate Elton, his editor and HarperCollins UK chief executive, described him after his death as “phenomenally hard-working” and a “master storyteller”. Earlier this year, he completed Adam & Eve, his final full-length novel.
Reflecting on his life, he once said: “I feel I have had a very interesting life, but I am rather hoping there is still more to come. I still haven't captained the England cricket team or sung at Carnegie Hall.” But Archer summed it up best when he added: “We all make mistakes, but one has to move on.” The author never stopped.
