LONDON: Jeffrey Archer, one of the bestselling authors of the past half-century, has died aged 86, a day before the publication of the book he had planned as his last, Adam and Eve.
His publisher, HarperCollins, said he died suddenly and peacefully at home on Monday, October 5, between writing sessions, the trade magazine The Bookseller reported. Adam and Eve was published around the world by HarperCollins on October 6.
Archer had been meeting readers until the end. On Sunday, October 4, the day before his death, he appeared at a sold-out event at the Leicester Square Theatre in London, where he met and signed books for hundreds of fans.
HarperCollins said Archer sold more than 300 million books in 119 countries and 49 languages. His first novel, Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less, came out in 1976 and began a career that ran for five decades.
His best-known book, Kane and Abel, was published in 1979 and is estimated to have sold 34 million copies. Later he wrote the seven-volume Clifton Chronicles, published between 2011 and 2016, and eight novels about the detective William Warwick, published between 2019 and 2025.
According to his publisher, his books spent a combined 14 years and five months on the Sunday Times bestseller lists and five and a half years on the New York Times lists, and he was the only author to have reached number one on the Sunday Times lists in fiction, short stories and non-fiction.
Kate Elton, chief executive of HarperCollins UK and Archer's editor, called him "the master storyteller and an editor's dream - phenomenally hard-working, utterly committed to completing draft after draft to get every word as perfect as possible."
She said he had decided from the start that Adam and Eve would be his final novel. "When he set out to write Adam and Eve, he told me from the very beginning that it would be his final novel – he was so excited about the scale of it and told me that if he could pull it off it would equal anything he'd previously written, on which basis he couldn't imagine embarking on any future novels," she said.
"He did indeed pull it off – and he was utterly thrilled by the early reader reactions. We're all devastated to have lost a writer who has brought joy to generations of readers – and a true friend," Elton added.
Pan Macmillan, which published him for 18 years between 2003 and 2021 and brought out 15 new novels and short-story collections in that time, also paid tribute. Earlier this year it reissued Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less to mark his 50 years in publishing. Lucy Hale, managing director of Pan, said: "Jeffrey was a master storyteller who kept readers gripped with page-turning plots full of unexpected twists and turns." She recalled his "incredible energy, sharp grasp of the numbers, playful grilling of the team and enthusiastic embrace of new technologies, and his fantastic sense of humour", and said his "immense legacy of storytelling will live on and undoubtedly continue to find new readers."
Born in London on April 15, 1940, Archer was elected Conservative MP for Louth in Lincolnshire in December 1969 and held the seat until September 1974. He was deputy chairman of the Conservative Party from September 1985 to October 1986.
In 1987 he won £500,000 in libel damages from the Daily Star, money he repaid in 2002. He was made a life peer as Baron Archer of Weston-super-Mare on July 27, 1992, and sat in the House of Lords for more than 25 years.
In 2001 he was convicted of perjury and sentenced to four years in prison. He was released on July 21, 2003, after serving half of the sentence.
Archer is survived by his wife, Mary Archer, with whom he marked their 60th wedding anniversary this year, their sons James and William, and five grandchildren. The family has asked for privacy and said they wanted to share how much he was loved and how proud they were of him.
