Jeffrey Howard Archer, Baron Archer of Weston-super-Mare, is a bestselling British author, politician, and former Member of Parliament. Jeffrey Archer has written many novels, including the Clifton Chronicles and the Kane and Abel series. He also wrote several plays and a prison diary while serving time in prison for perjury.
Jeffrey Archer has sold millions of copies of his books worldwide which have been translated into over 40 languages.
Jeffrey Archer was educated at Oxford University. He studied at Brasenose College, Oxford, where he received a degree in Modern History.
While at Oxford, he was a member of the exclusive Bullingdon Club, a social club known for its wealthy and aristocratic members.
He also attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) in London, where he studied acting. Jeffrey considered becoming an actor before deciding to focus on writing and politics instead.
Archer began his political career in the late 1960s and early 1970s. At the age of 29, he was elected as a Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) for the Louth constituency in Lincolnshire in 1969. He served as an MP until 1974 when he lost his seat.
In the 1970s and 1980s, he remained active in Conservative Party politics. Archer held various positions within the party, including being a Vice-Chairman of the Conservative Party and deputy chairman of the Conservative Party.
In 1986, Archer was elected as a member of the Greater London Council (GLC) for the City of London, serving until the GLC's abolition in 1986. He did not win any other election, but he was appointed as a party life peer in the House of Lords as Baron Archer of Weston-super-Mare by the then Prime minister Margaret Thatcher.
Scandal marred Jeffrey Archer's political career, including an accusation of perjury, which resulted in his disqualification as a member of parliament and his serving time in prison. Then he turned to a writing career.
After he was imprisoned for perjury in 2001, he wrote his highly acclaimed non-fiction series, Prison Diaries — Hell, Purgatory and Heaven — inspired by his experiences and loosely structured around Dante’s Divine Comedy.
Jeffrey Archer is perhaps most famous for the Clifton Chronicles. Book one, Only Time Will Tell, published in 2011, topped the charts worldwide, spending 12 weeks at #1 in India.
His blockbuster Kane and Abel (1979) was number one on the New York Times’s Bestseller list, with an estimated 34 million copies sold worldwide.
In 2019, Jeffrey launched Nothing Ventured, the first book in the current series featuring Detective William Warwick, a character from the Clifton Chronicles. Four books have been published in the series so far.
The Warwick series went to #1 on the charts in the UK, Australia, India, and South Africa. Jeffrey plans to publish the remaining 4 William Warwick novels (WW6–9) between 2023 — 2026.
In 2022, Jeffrey formed The Jeffrey Archer Company to handle his IP for TV and Film.
Photo credit: jeffreyarcher.com
