Jeffrey Archer, the bestselling British novelist and former politician who was jailed for lying in a high-profile libel case, died aged 86 on Monday, just one day before his final novel "Adam and Eve" was due to be published.
The confidant of former prime minister Margaret Thatcher lived a life that swung from the heights of luxury and fame to the lows of a two-year stint in prison for perjury over paying a woman for sex. He sold more than 300 million copies of his books, spent a total of five and a half years on the New York Times bestseller lists and found fans around the world with his pacy thrillers, among them the 1976 debut "Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less" and 1979's mass-selling "Kane & Abel".
Publisher HarperCollins said Archer, who had met and signed books for fans in London's Leicester Square Theatre on Sunday and had been scheduled to speak at events this week, died "suddenly and peacefully at home ... between writing sessions". Kate Elton, HarperCollins' UK CEO and Archer's editor, said: "We're all devastated to have lost a writer who has brought joy to generations of readers — and a true friend."
According to Elton, Archer had always intended "Adam and Eve" to be his last work: "When he set out to write 'Adam and Eve', he told me from the very beginning that it would be his final novel." His death, coming just 24 hours before its publication, lent the launch a sombre edge that book trade watchers said would make it one of the most discussed posthumous releases of the year.
Archer's political career was as dramatic as his fiction. He first made headlines when he entered parliament in 1969, aged 29, before he became a casualty of a fraudulent investment scheme which meant he did not stand for re-election in 1974 but went into writing to try to clear his debts. "When I was three, I wanted to be four; when I was four, I wanted to be prime minister," he was quoted as saying in 2001.
Despite only a short stint in parliament, he remained a central figure within the Conservative Party, spent more than 30 years sitting in the upper House of Lords chamber in parliament and raised millions of pounds for charity. His reputation, however, was permanently stained by the 1987 libel trial in which he won damages from the Daily Star over a claim that he had paid a prostitute, only to be convicted of perjury in 2001 after evidence emerged that he had lied under oath. He served two years of a four-year prison sentence.
In later years Archer rebuilt his public standing as a tireless charity fundraiser and prolific author, publishing the Clifton Chronicles and the William Warwick series well into his eighties. Tributes poured in from across publishing and politics, with admirers noting that few figures in modern British public life had embodied such a spectacular arc of ambition, disgrace and reinvention.