Jeffrey Archer has died suddenly at his home at the age of 86.
The ‘master storyteller’ died on the eve of the publication of Adam & Eve, the novel he said would be his last.
The former Conservative deputy chairman had been in financial ruin before turning to writing making millions out of his best-selling novels, most notably Kane and Abel.
His political career came to an abrupt halt in 2001 when he was jailed for perjury.
An Old Bailey jury found that he had lied in a libel action he had brought against The Star newspaper 13 years earlier, in which he was awarded £500,000 damages over allegations that he slept with a prostitute.
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He was accused of asking a friend to provide him with a false alibi for one of the night relating to the libel case and of producing fake diary entries to back up his lie.
But Archer continued to churn out best-sellers even behind bars.
While serving his sentence, he documented his experiences in prison, turning it into his highly successful three-volume non-fiction series, A Prison Diary (published as Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven).
He was released in 2003 and returned to the House of Lords until he retired in 2024.
In a statement, his publisher’s HarperCollins said the author died ‘peacefully’ on Monday.
His final book, Adam and Eve, is set to be released later this month HarperCollins revealed, describing him as a ‘master storyteller’ whose readers ‘meant everything to him’.
‘Jeffrey’s career is the stuff of publishing legend’, the statement continued.
‘He spent a total of 14 years and five months on the Sunday Times bestseller lists and 5 ½ years on the New York Times bestseller lists, selling 300 million books in 119 countries in 49 languages.
‘He was 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, and a true champion of the ‘team’ nature of great publishing.’
Harper Collins said the author had met and signed books for hundreds of fans at a sold-out event with broadcaster Gyles Brandreth at the Leicester Square theater in central London the day before he died.
Writing on X, Brandreth said: ‘Just yesterday I did a show with Jeffrey Archer to celebrate his new novel – he said it was to be his last.
‘He was in the most wonderful, ebullient form and had such a great reception from a packed house. He was funny, engaging and self-deprecating – a great storyteller to the last.’
Archer was due to be at the Cheltenham Festival on Saturday to discuss his final novel, Adam and Eve.
He had his wife Mary had celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary this year. They had two sons and five grandchildren.