The author and former politician Jeffrey Archer has died aged 86. Archer, who was a Conservative MP for five years before serving as the party’s deputy chairman, died “suddenly and peacefully” at his home “between writing sessions” on Monday, his publisher Harper Collins said. He had a successful career as a novelist and was made a life peer in 1992.
During a run to become mayor of London for the Conservatives in 1999, his political career was in effect ended when it emerged he had lied in court over a decade earlier when a newspaper accused him of paying money to a sex worker. He was convicted of perjury and perverting the course of justice and imprisoned for four years. An Old Bailey jury found that he had lied in a libel action he had brought against the Star newspaper in 1987 in which he had been awarded £500,000 in damages.
He was released early in 2003 and returned to the House of Lords until he retired in 2024. Kate Elton, Harper Collins UK’s chief executive and Archer’s editor, said: “It has been one of the great privileges of my publishing life to have been Jeffrey Archer’s editor. His first novel, Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less, was published in 1976, two years after bankruptcy marked the end of his time as a sitting MP.
This marked the beginning of an enviable writing career. Archer spent a total of 14 years and five months on the Sunday Times bestseller lists and over five years on the New York Times bestseller lists, selling 300 million books in 119 countries in 49 languages. His 1979 novel Kane and Abel remains among the best-selling books in the world, having sold over 30 million copies to date.
His death came less than 24 hours after Archer had met and signed books for hundreds of fans at a sold-out event with broadcaster Gyles Brandreth at the Leicester Square Theatre in central London on Sunday, Harper Collins said. 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 funny, engaging and self-deprecating – a great storyteller to the last.” Archer had been due to be at the Cheltenham festival later in the month to discuss his forthcoming novel.
Archer is survived by his wife, Mary, and their sons, William and James.
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