Jeffrey Archer (1940-2026)
October 7, 2026
THE old rogue Jeffrey Archer has died very suddenly, “in between writing sessions”, they say. “In between” seems to be an erroneous way to describe it, given that there will be no more writing at all after his peaceful death. He’d spent the final weekend of his life on a stage with Gyles Brandreth to discuss his fiftieth novel. His fiftieth novel! Never mind the quality, on which I am not qualified to comment: the volume is something to be admired.
On social media, the likes of Dominic Sandbrook are talking about how captivating Archer’s books were. Having never read any of them, I can only remember the accusations of plagiarism that appeared regularly in Private Eye. There were constant insinuations either that he didn’t write any of his books at all, or that he scrawled them down with felt-tip pens and left all the hard work to his editors.
Archer was a striver and survivor, a shameless and incorrigible self-publicist. He endured bankruptcy, ridicule and a very humbling jail sentence, but plugged away unabashed. I think back to the peak Archer era some twenty-odd years ago, when he was a permanent figure of fun in the press and on panel shows, a fabulist and conman every bit as preposterous as Jason Arday, but with none of Arday’s annoying “protected characteristics”. The satirist and columnist Alan Coren thought nothing of mocking Archer on The News Quiz nearly every week, even though he found him to be good company and was regularly invited to Archer’s famous champagne and shepherd’s pie parties.
Still, it is worth remembering all the scandals that Archer was involved in. Not just that attempt to pay off a hooker and the subsequent perjury conviction (itself a consequence of his trying to rip off the man who gave him his alibi), but also the theft of the suits in Toronto and the allegations of insider trading in Anglia shares and all that murkiness surrounding his fundraising for Kurdistan, not to mention all his lies about his educational achievements and family background. He was an absolute scoundrel, but somehow managed to brush it all off and survive. We Brits still like scoundrels, the more shameless the better.
Archer was still at it until the very end. A day or two before his sudden death, he appeared on Sunday’s episode of BBC Radio 4’s Broadcasting House, one part unctuous and two parts bumptious, an ebullient Mr. Toad who has somehow been appointed school prefect, chuckling and blustering about his latest (and last) novel, entitled Adam and Eve, which he claims is his best. There is still something poignant about the way he vows to continue writing and doing all his charitable works, and in the end he promises Paddy O’Connell that he will come on the show again. He was shameless and incorrigible to the last.
Brandreth’s Rosebud podcast features his final conversation with the old scoundrel. Brandreth wonders whether Archer had a premonition about his death. Archer died at home in his sleep after a morning of writing, and Brandreth says “perhaps there couldn’t be a better way to go.”
In the Times, Janice Turner provides welcome respite from all this gushing. She writes, “The idea that Jeffrey Archer was a loveable rogue, without ‘an ounce of malice’, as my colleague Matthew Parris puts it, sadly does not accord with my own experience of interviewing him back in 2008.” She then describes a petulant Archer affronted by her impertinent questions about his integrity.
