Queen Camilla has paid a personal tribute to bestselling novelist Jeffrey Archer following his death at 86, remembering a writer whose life was nearly as dramatic as the stories he wrote.
Archer died suddenly and peacefully at his home on October 5, according to his publisher, HarperCollins. His death came just one day before the publication of his final novel, Adam & Eve.
In a statement released Tuesday, Camilla described Archer as an “irrepressible life force” and reflected on a life filled with extraordinary successes, setbacks and unexpected turns.
The Queen also noted that Archer had appeared recently at her Queen’s Reading Room Festival, an initiative he had supported.
Her tribute ended on a particularly personal note, with Camilla expressing hope that wherever Archer’s story continues, there will be “champagne and Shepherd’s Pie” in abundance.
The reference was unmistakably Archer. His champagne-and-shepherd’s-pie parties became famous fixtures of British political and social life.
A bestselling career that reached America
Archer’s novels sold more than 300 million copies worldwide, according to HarperCollins.
His books included Kane and Abel, Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less and the Clifton Chronicles, and his success extended well beyond Britain.
Reuters reported that Archer spent a combined five and a half years on The New York Times bestseller lists, making Camilla’s tribute particularly relevant to the millions of American readers who knew his work long before they knew the details of his political career.
His final novel, Adam & Eve, was published October 6 as planned.
Archer had continued meeting readers until almost the end of his life. He attended a sold-out book event in London the day before his death.
Read Jeffrey Archer
Adam & Eve
Archer’s final novel was published on October 6, one day after his death.
Also worth reading: Kane and Abel, one of Archer’s best-known international bestsellers, and Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less, the 1976 debut that launched his fiction career.
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A complicated public life
Camilla’s tribute did not ignore the more difficult chapters of Archer’s life.
His career crossed literature and politics, including service as a Conservative member of Parliament and later more than three decades in the House of Lords.
It was also marked by scandal.
Archer was convicted of perjury and perverting the course of justice in 2001 in connection with evidence surrounding an earlier libel case. He received a four-year prison sentence and served approximately two years.
He later wrote about his imprisonment in his A Prison Diary series and continued publishing bestselling fiction after his release.
Camilla acknowledged that Archer had flaws while focusing her tribute on the energy, friendship and storytelling that those close to him remembered.
A final chapter
Archer had already decided that Adam & Eve would be his final full-length novel after approximately 50 years as an author.
In an interview shortly before his death, he described the book as one of the most satisfying works he had written.
His death on the eve of its publication gives the novel an unexpected significance as the final installment in a writing career that reached readers across generations and around the world.
Camilla offered her sympathies to Archer’s wife of 60 years, Dame Mary Archer, and their family.
For a writer who built his career around dramatic reversals and unexpected endings, his final chapter arrived with one last extraordinary turn.
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