Jeffrey Archer, best-selling author and former U.K. Conservative MP, dead at 86 - National Post
British author and former MP Jeffrey Archer in 2013. Photo by LEON NEAL/AFP via Getty ImagesArticle contentBritish author Jeffrey Archer, who penned a series of best-selling novels, served as a Conservative MP and was convicted of perjury, died suddenly at 86, his publisher HarperCollins said.
Archer died “suddenly and peacefully at his home between writing sessions” on Monday, HarperCollins said.
His editor, Kate Elton, called him a “master storyteller and an editor’s dream.”
The writer had been due to appear at Cheltenham Literary Festival this week to discuss Adam and Eve, what he described as his final novel after 50 years of storytelling.
It was due to be published Tuesday.
The Sun tabloid reported that he had been signing books for fans at an event in London on Sunday.
Archer had revealed in 2014 that he had been diagnosed with prostate cancer.
The author led a life as colourful as the characters in his novels, which sold over 300 million copies, according to his website.
Talented and ambitious, he was a high flyer who could never quite escape the whiff of scandal despite a talent for bouncing back from humiliating setbacks.
Politics and sex were the ingredients which ensured his success as a novelist.
But in real life the combination led to the downfall of the man who once hoped to become mayor of London.
He was tried for perjury and perverting the course of justice after a friend admitted he had supplied a false alibi during a libel case the peer brought against the Daily Star tabloid in 1987.
Archer had sued the newspaper over a claim he had slept with a prostitute, winning £500,000 in damages.
Ambitious from his earliest years, Archer used his charm and fundraising abilities to climb almost to the top of the Conservative Party.
He joined the Tories while a student at Britain’s prestigious Oxford University and in 1969 won a resounding byelection victory to become a member of parliament at the age of 29.
His parliamentary career came to an abrupt end in 1974 when he was brought to the brink of bankruptcy by the collapse of a Canadian industrial cleaning company in which he had invested.
However, with typical resilience he used his experiences as material for his first book Not A Penny More, Not A Penny Less, published in 1975, the first of a series of blockbusters set in the worlds of high finance and politics.
Panned by the critics, they nevertheless earned him a fortune and Archer nursed hopes of a political revival while using his contacts and persuasiveness to raise millions of pounds for the Tories.
In 1985, his labours were recognized by then prime minister Margaret Thatcher, who named him Conservative deputy chairman, describing him as a model Tory high achiever.
