Jeffrey Archer

Educated at Wellington School, Somerset, and Oxford University, Jeffrey Archer gained an Athletics Blue, was President of the University Athletics Club, and went on to run the 100 yards in 9.6 seconds for Great Britain in 1966. Jeffrey has served five years in the House of Commons and twenty-eight years in the House of Lords. Jeffrey's first novel, Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less was published in 1975 and was sold to 17 countries within a year. His third novel, Kane and Abel (1979), became a number one bestseller in hardcover and paperback around the world and has sold over 7 million in the UK paperback edition alone, and is now on its 123rd reprint. Now, with 37 books, 275 million copies sold and 27 Sunday Times number one bestsellers, Jeffrey Archer is a global publishing phenomenon. Forty-four years since he first burst onto the literary scene, he has never been more popular, and is the only UK author ever to have been a number one bestseller in fiction (twenty times), short stories (four times) and non-fiction (The Prison Diaries). In November 2014, Jeffrey was honored at the Bord Gáis Energy Irish Book Awards with the inaugural International Recognition Award given to writers who 'have contributed substantially to the health and wealth of the Irish book-trade'. Jeffrey is also an amateur auctioneer, conducting around 25 charity auctions a year, and raised over £2.9 million last year, and over £54 million for various charities during the past 33 years. He has been married to Dame Mary Archer DBE, Chair of the Science Museum Group, for 54 years. They have two sons and four grandchildren, and live in London and Cambridge.