Jeffrey Archer, whose novels sold more than 300 million copies over five decades, has died at the age of 86. His publisher, HarperCollins, said he died suddenly and peacefully at home on Monday, between writing sessions, in the same week that his final book is due to be published.
Archer’s best-known titles include Kane and Abel and the Clifton Chronicles, and he often set his stories in his home town of Wellington, Somerset. His last novel, Adam and Eve, is due out this week. On Sunday he signed books for fans at the Leicester Square Theatre in London with the broadcaster Gyles Brandreth, who said Archer had told him it would be his final novel and called him “a great storyteller to the last”. He had returned to Wellington School the week before to promote the book and was due to discuss it at the Cheltenham Festival on Saturday.
Born in north London on 15 April 1940, Archer grew up in Weston-super-Mare, where his family bought a house from John Cleese’s mother. He was elected MP for Louth in Lincolnshire in 1969, served five years in the Commons and later became deputy chairman of the Conservative Party. In 2001 he was jailed for four years for perjury and perverting the course of justice, after being found to have lied in the 1987 libel case he brought against the Daily Star, in which he had been awarded £500,000 in damages. He was released in 2003 and returned to the House of Lords, where he sat until he retired in 2024.
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch called his death a huge shock and said he had sent her a kind message only that morning. Kate Elton, chief executive of HarperCollins UK and Archer’s editor, said he had been an editor’s dream, working through draft after draft to get every word right. Former chancellor Nadhim Zahawi described him as a “dear friend and extraordinary human being”.
HarperCollins said Archer’s readers had meant everything to him. He and his wife, Mary, celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary this year, and the couple have two sons and five grandchildren.
