Jeffrey Archer, novelist and former Conservative MP, dies aged 86

Jeffrey Archer, the Conservative MP who rebuilt his fortune as one of Britain’s bestselling novelists and later served a prison sentence for perjury, has died aged 86. His publisher, HarperCollins, said he died suddenly and peacefully at home on Monday 5 October, between writing sessions.

He had been busy until the end. On the Sunday before his death he signed books for hundreds of fans at a sold-out evening with Gyles Brandreth at the Leicester Square Theatre in London. His new novel, Adam and Eve, was due in shops on Tuesday 6 October, and he had called it his final novel after 50 years of storytelling. He was also expected at the Cheltenham festival to talk about it.

“He was funny, engaging and self-deprecating, a great storyteller to the last.”

Gyles Brandreth, broadcaster

From Havering councillor to a seat he could not afford

Archer’s public life began in local government. He served as a Conservative councillor for Havering and ran an art gallery in Mayfair before winning a 1969 by-election for Louth in Lincolnshire. He was 29.

His time on the green benches was short. According to The Guardian, a fraudulent investment scheme left him owing almost half a million pounds, and he announced he would not contest the 1974 election because of financial difficulties. Le Monde traces the same collapse to a failed Canadian industrial cleaning firm in which he had put money, leaving him close to bankruptcy.

Debt became material. His first novel, Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less, drew on those losses and was later adapted for radio and television. By the mid-1980s he had added several more successful novels, along with short stories, plays and children’s books.

Party office, a libel victory and the fall that followed

Literary success brought him back into Conservative politics, and the decade that followed set up both his rise and his downfall.

1. 1985 Margaret Thatcher names him deputy chairman of the Conservative party.
2. 1987 He wins £500,000 in libel damages from the Star over a claim that he had paid Monica Coghlan in 1986.
3. 1992 On John Major’s recommendation he becomes a life peer, with a seat in the House of Lords.
4. 1999 He seeks the Conservative nomination for London mayor, then drops the bid after a claim surfaces that he asked his friend Ted Francis for a false alibi; he is expelled from the party.
5. 30 May 2001 His perjury trial opens; he is convicted of perjury and perverting the course of justice and jailed for four years.
6. 2003 Released early after serving half his sentence, having been held at Belmarsh and then four other prisons.
7. 2024 Retires from the House of Lords, to which he had returned after prison.

The Conservative leader of the day, William Hague, was blunt about the party’s break with him: “This is the end of politics for Jeffrey Archer. I will not tolerate such behaviour in my party.”

His wife Mary, a scientist, stood by him through the trial years. She once summed up their marriage this way: “We’ve explored the further reaches of ‘for better and for worse’ than most couples.”

The scale of the books he leaves

Those figures, reported by The Guardian, rest heavily on one title. Kane and Abel, published in 1979, has sold more than 30 million copies on its own, roughly a tenth of his lifetime total.

Kate Elton, chief executive of HarperCollins UK and his editor, paid tribute after his death: “It has been one of the great privileges of my publishing life to have been Jeffrey Archer’s editor.” Former Tory minister Nadhim Zahawi described him as “a dear friend and an extraordinary human being”.

Archer is survived by Mary, who Le Monde notes is Chancellor of the University of Buckingham, and by their sons, William and James.

Featured image. Source: Pexels. Credit: cottonbro studio. License: Pexels License.