Best-selling British novelist and former Tory politician Jeffrey Archer, who was jailed for perjury in a high-profile libel case, has died at 86, his publisher said on Monday.
Archer sold over 300 million copies worldwide during his five-decade writing career and was known for pacy thrillers such as his 1976 debut Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less and the Kane and Abel series. His final novel, Adam and Eve, was set for release on Tuesday.
Kate Elton, HarperCollins’ UK Chief Executive and Archer’s editor, said he died “suddenly and peacefully” at his home. “We’re all devastated to have lost a writer who has brought joy to generations of readers – and a true friend,” Elton said in a statement.
A prominent Conservative politician, Archer briefly served as an MP before becoming a senior party official under then prime minister Margaret Thatcher in the mid-1980s.
But Archer faced a very public downfall when he was convicted of perjury and perverting the course of justice in 2001.
The charges stemmed from his successful 1987 libel case against the British newspaper the Daily Star, which accused him of hiring a prostitute. Archer had been awarded £500,000 ($948,000).
He was sentenced to four years’ imprisonment and was released in 2003, after which he returned to the House of Lords until retirement in 2024.
Just last week Archer visited his old school library, in the village of Wellington in the English county of Somerset, the BBC reported.
“It’s wonderful to come back. What I got a real thrill about when I was walking towards the library is seeing the young boys and girls and thinking, ‘that’s the next generation’,” Archer said, according to the British broadcaster.
He said he attended the school because of a scholarship.
“I was on a scholarship because we had no money. I came from Weston-super-Mare, and we had no money. I would never have got in without a scholarship.”
Born in London in 1940, Archer’s family soon moved to Somerset where, the BBC reports, his parents bought a house from John Cleese’s mother.
Elected to the House of Commons at 29 in 1969, Archer was forced to resign five years later after bad investments drove him to bankruptcy. This led him to write his debut novel.
He is survived by his wife Dame Mary Archer, their sons, James and William, and several grandchildren.
With Reuters
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Kayla Olaya is a culture reporter at The Sydney Morning Herald.Connect via email.From our partners
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