Jeffrey Archer Writes His Final Chapter, Dies at 86

Best-selling British novelist and former Conservative politician Jeffrey Archer has died at the age of 86, his publisher Harper Collins announced on Monday. Archer, whose international literary career spanned several decades and saw more than 300 million books sold across 119 countries, became one of Britain best known thriller writers. His career included popular novels such as his 1976 debut Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less and the 1979 bestseller Kane & Abel. His final novel, Adam and Eve, is scheduled to be released on Tuesday, according to Reuters. Archer appeared on the Sunday Times bestseller lists for 14 years and five months and on the New York Times bestseller lists for five and a half year. He was also the only author to have held the No. 1 position on the Sunday Times bestseller list in fiction, short stories and non fiction. His readers meant everything to him, and just yesterday he met and signed books for hundreds of fans at a sold out event at the Leicester Square Theatre in London, Harper Collins said. According to the publisher, Archer died suddenly but peacefully between writing sessions. He had continued promoting his final project through recent radio appearances and had been scheduled to appear at the Cheltenham Literature Festival later this week. We’re all devastated to have lost a writer who has brought joy to generations of readers and a true friend, said Kate Elton, UK CEO of HarperCollins and Archer long time editor. Elton also recalled Archer conversations about Adam and Eve, saying the author had decided from the beginning that it would be his final novel. Archer had reportedly been excited by the scale of the project and believed that completing it would allow him to end his writing career on a high point. Political career and controversy Born in north London on April 15, 1940, Archer later moved to Weston super Mare in Somerset, according to the BBC. His political career began in 1969, when he was elected as the Conservative MP for Louth in Lincolnshire. He served in Parliament for five years before becoming deputy chairman of the Conservative Party under then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s. Along side his political and literary success, however, Archer public life was marked by a series of controversies. In 1987, he won a record £500,000 in libel damages after successfully suing the Daily Star over allegations concerning a sex worker. The case returned to public attention more than a decade later when Archer was seeking to become the Conservative candidate for Mayor of London. In 2001, Archer was convicted of perjury and perverting the course of justice after allegations that he had fabricated evidence during the earlier libel case. He was sentenced to four years in prison and served two year. His prison experience later became the subject of A Prison Diary, adding another chapter to a life that moved between Westminster politics, literary fame, scandal and imprisonment. Despite the controversies surrounding his public career, Archer remained a prolific and commercially successful author for decades. With the publication of Adam and Eve, his literary career now reaches its final chapter, leaving behind one of Britain's most commercially successful bodies of popular fiction.