Jeffrey Archer

Jeffrey Howard Archer was born on 15 April 1940 at the City of London Maternity Hospital in Holloway, north London. When he was two weeks old his family moved to Somerset and settled in Weston-super-Mare, where they bought a house from the mother of John Cleese.

His mother, Lola, worked as a journalist on the Weston Mercury and wrote a weekly column called "Over the Teacups", in which she often wrote about her son and called him "Tuppence". His father, William, was 64 when Jeffrey was born and died in 1956. Archer later gave the press conflicting accounts of a military career for his father, but researchers found that William had been a bigamist and conman who faced fraud charges at the Old Bailey. Through his father, Archer had an American half-sister, Rosemary, who married Senator Brien McMahon of Connecticut.

In 1951 Archer passed the 11-plus and won a scholarship to Wellington School in Somerset (not Wellington College in Berkshire, as he was sometimes inclined to let people believe). He was bullied there and took up fitness training to build his physique. He left with O-levels in English literature, art and history.

After brief spells training with the army and as a probationary constable in the Metropolitan Police, he worked as a physical education teacher at Vicar's Hill prep school in Hampshire and at Dover College. In 1963 he was accepted by the University of Oxford Delegacy of Extra-Mural Studies for a Diploma of Education and became a member of Brasenose College. Questions were later raised about the qualifications he cited to get there. He spent three years at Oxford, won a Blue in athletics, ran the 100 metres in 10.6 seconds, competed for England and once for Great Britain, and was president of the Oxford University Athletic Club in 1965 to 1966.

After Oxford, Archer worked as a charity fundraiser for the National Birthday Trust and then as chief fundraiser for the United Nations Association. He served as a Conservative councillor for Havering on the Greater London Council from 1967 to 1970, set up the fundraising firm Arrow Enterprises, and briefly ran the Archer Gallery in Mayfair.

On 4 December 1969, aged 29, he won the Louth by-election in Lincolnshire. He was on the left of his party, rebelling on some policies, backing free TV licences for older people and opposing museum entrance charges. In 1974 the collapse of the fraudulent Aquablast investment scheme left him almost £500,000 in debt, and he did not stand at the October 1974 general election.

He wrote his first novel, Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less, in the autumn of 1974 to escape bankruptcy. It was published in 1976. Kane and Abel (1979) became his biggest success, reaching number one on the New York Times bestseller list and selling an estimated 34 million copies. Later novels included The Prodigal Daughter, First Among Equals, A Matter of Honour, As the Crow Flies, Honour Among Thieves, The Fourth Estate, A Prisoner of Birth, the seven-book Clifton Chronicles (2011 to 2016) and the William Warwick detective series (2019 to 2025). He also wrote the plays Beyond Reasonable Doubt (1987), Exclusive (1989) and The Accused (2000), and the three-volume A Prison Diary.

His political career revived in the 1980s. Margaret Thatcher appointed him deputy chairman of the Conservative Party in September 1985, and he resigned in October 1986. He was made a life peer on 27 July 1992 as Baron Archer of Weston-super-Mare, after John Major recommended him for his work raising money for Kurdish refugees through the Simple Truth appeal. In 1999 he was selected as the Conservative candidate for the 2000 London mayoral election but withdrew in November 1999. He retired from the House of Lords on 4 July 2024.

He was known for writing many drafts of each book, working in two-hour blocks, and from 2010 wrote first drafts at his villa in Mallorca, which he called "Writer's Block". His final novel, Adam and Eve, inspired by Hitler's indecision over invading Britain, was published by HarperCollins on 6 October 2026.

Archer married Mary Weeden in July 1966. They met at Oxford, where she was studying chemistry at St Anne's College, and she went on to become a scientist specialising in solar energy. They celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary in 2026 with friends at the Old Vicarage in Grantchester, the former home of Rupert Brooke, which they bought in 1979.

They had two sons, William (born 1972), a theatre producer, and James (born 1974), a financial adviser and businessman, and five grandchildren. Archer also kept a penthouse overlooking the Thames and the Houses of Parliament and a villa in Mallorca. As a boy he dreamed of captaining Bristol Rovers, and he remained a fan of the club for life. During the 2001 trial his former mistress, Andrina Colquhoun, confirmed they had had an affair in the 1980s.

Archer described himself as centre-right and said in 1999 that he had always disliked the right wing as much as the left. As an MP he was seen as a liberal Conservative. He consistently opposed a return to capital punishment. In 1994 he said on Question Time that the age of consent for gay men should be lowered from 21 to 18, though not to 16. At the 1993 party conference he urged Home Secretary Michael Howard to "stand and deliver" on crime. In his later years he spoke publicly about prostate cancer and encouraged men to get checked.

Archer's books sold more than 300 million copies worldwide and were translated into more than 30 languages, making him one of the most commercially successful British authors of his era. Kane and Abel remains one of the bestselling novels in the world. HarperCollins called him a "master storyteller", and his editor Kate Elton described him as "an editor's dream".

His public life was just as remembered for its scandals. He was one of the few peers ever jailed for perjury, and his story of falls and comebacks inspired satire, including the BBC drama Jeffrey Archer: The Truth (2002), in which Damian Lewis played him. Tributes after his death came from Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch, who said he had sent her a message that very morning, from Gyles Brandreth, and from Nadhim Zahawi.

Archer was created a life peer on 27 July 1992 as Baron Archer of Weston-super-Mare, of Mark in the County of Somerset. At Oxford he won a Blue in athletics and was president of the Oxford University Athletic Club. His 100 metres time of 10.6 seconds is recorded as the joint second fastest by an Oxford student. Kane and Abel reached number one on the New York Times bestseller list, and Over My Dead Body also became a New York Times bestseller.

Major novels: Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less (1976), Kane and Abel (1979), The Prodigal Daughter (1982), First Among Equals (1984), A Matter of Honour (1986), As the Crow Flies (1991), Honour Among Thieves (1993), The Fourth Estate (1996), The Eleventh Commandment (1998), Sons of Fortune (2002), False Impression (2005), A Prisoner of Birth (2008), Paths of Glory (2009), Heads You Win (2018) and Adam and Eve (2026).

The Clifton Chronicles: Only Time Will Tell, The Sins of the Father, Best Kept Secret, Be Careful What You Wish For, Mightier Than the Sword, Cometh the Hour and This Was a Man.

William Warwick series: Nothing Ventured, Hidden in Plain Sight, Turn a Blind Eye, Over My Dead Body, Next in Line, Traitor's Gate, An Eye for an Eye and End Game.

Short stories include A Quiver Full of Arrows, A Twist in the Tale, Twelve Red Herrings, To Cut a Long Story Short, Cat O'Nine Tales and And Thereby Hangs a Tale. Non-fiction: A Prison Diary (Hell, Purgatory and Heaven). Plays: Beyond Reasonable Doubt, Exclusive and The Accused.

Adaptations include the 1985 CBS miniseries Kane and Abel with Peter Strauss and Sam Neill, Granada's 1986 First Among Equals, and a 1990 BBC adaptation of Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less.

In 1986 the News of the World reported that Archer's friend had paid sex worker Monica Coghlan £2,000 at Victoria Station to go abroad. Archer resigned as party deputy chairman and in 1987 won £500,000 in libel damages from the Daily Star, a trial remembered for Mr Justice Caulfield's remarks about Mary Archer's "fragrance".

In 1994 he bought shares in Anglia Television, where Mary was a director, the day after a takeover was discussed by its board. The Department of Trade and Industry decided not to prosecute. In November 1999 Ted Francis alleged that Archer had asked him for a false alibi for the 1987 case. Archer quit the London mayoral race and was expelled from the Conservative Party for five years. On 19 July 2001 he was convicted of perjury and perverting the course of justice and jailed for four years. He served time at Belmarsh, Wayland, North Sea Camp, Lincoln and Hollesley Bay, and in 2002 repaid the Daily Star its damages plus about £1.3 million in costs and interest.

Other controversies included questions about funds raised for Kurdish refugees (a KPMG audit found misappropriation by Archer unlikely), a 1975 accusation over three suits from a Toronto store, a 1988 plagiarism claim he denied, and allegations, which he dismissed, about the 2004 Equatorial Guinea coup attempt.

Jeffrey Archer died suddenly and peacefully at home on Monday 5 October 2026, aged 86, between writing sessions, his publisher HarperCollins said. Reports place his home at the Old Vicarage in Grantchester, near Cambridge. The day before, he had signed books for hundreds of fans at a sold-out event with Gyles Brandreth at the Leicester Square Theatre in London. He had recently visited his old school, Wellington, and was due to speak at the Cheltenham Literature Festival about his final novel, Adam and Eve, which was published on 6 October 2026. The cause of death has not been made public. He is survived by his wife of 60 years, Dame Mary Archer, their sons and five grandchildren.