Jeffrey Archer: Stranger Than Fiction by Michael Crick

Jeffrey Archer: Stranger Than Fiction (Collectible First Edition Unauthorised Biography)

The Unauthorised Biography of the Novelist and Politician Jeffrey Archer, by the Journalist Michael Crick

Bibliographic Specifications

• Title: Jeffrey Archer: Stranger Than Fiction: stranger than fiction
• Author: Michael Crick
• Publisher: Hamish Hamilton, London
• Publication Date: 1995
• ISBN-13: 9780241133606
• ISBN-10: 0241133602
• Edition Details: First published 1995. Hardcover issue in dust jacket.
• Binding: Publisher's blue cloth boards, with a photographic dust jacket carrying a blue band and gilt lettering.
• Physical Format: Large octavo hardcover biography, 456 pages.
• Language: English

Official Condition Report

• The Book: Very Good Plus (VG+)
• Exterior / Boards: The plain blue cloth boards are clean, with no visible marks, and the spine is straight. The boards show no obvious wear.
• Interior: The text block is clean and tightly bound. The pages are free of foxing and markings, and the page edges are slightly toned (cream), consistent with age.
• The Dust Jacket: Present. The photographic jacket with blue band and gilt lettering is bright and presentable, and carries a barcode/ISBN sticker on the back. There is a possible small mark near the top right of the front, and some fine surface scuffing to the protective film, which appears cosmetic. Protected in a durable archival-type plastic cover. Graded Very Good (VG).

Synopsis & Historical Value

Published by Hamish Hamilton in London in 1995, Jeffrey Archer: Stranger Than Fiction is Michael Crick's unauthorised biography of the bestselling novelist and former politician. It is the product of extensive research and sets out to separate the public persona from the documented record.

The book follows Archer from his family background and his father, through his brief time as a policeman and a shoplifting arrest, to his rise as a writer and his career in politics. Paul Foot, reviewing it in the London Review of Books, praised its rigour, noting among other things Crick's exposure of a claimed qualification as no more than a correspondence course.

The back cover carries comments from public figures on Archer's charm and career, including a friend's loyal remark dated March 1995. As a well-regarded work of British political biography by a prominent broadcast journalist, it is a worthwhile collectible copy in its original dust jacket.

Author Profile: Michael Crick

Michael Crick, born in 1958, was educated at Manchester Grammar School and New College, Oxford, where he was President of the Oxford Union and edited Cherwell. He was a founder member of Channel 4 News, serving as Washington Correspondent from 1988 to 1990 and later as Political Correspondent from 2011 to 2019. At the BBC he reported for Panorama and was Political Editor of Newsnight from 2007 to 2011.

His other books include Militant (1984), Michael Heseltine: A Biography (1997), The Boss: The Many Sides of Alex Ferguson (2002), a biography of David Butler (2018) and One Party After Another, on Nigel Farage (2022).

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