April 1940: Lola Archer, who died last week aged 87, gives birth to Jeffrey Archer. A journalist, she is the first woman to work on the Weston Mercury. His father, William, is much older than his mother but not, as Archer sometimes intimated, a decorated first world war hero. He was a convicted fraudster and bigamist who travelled to the United States on his dead employer's passport. He lived out the war years duping, in the words of a 1919 newspaper article, "many well known New York people".
September 1951: Archer attends Wellington School in Somerset. It was a private school but not - as some may have mistakenly believed - the much more exclusive Wellington college in Berkshire.
If you can't remember the 60s
October 1963: Archer claims to have been a student at Oxford university (in Who's Who he still lists Brasenose college as his alma mater). But according to his unauthorised biographer, Michael Crick, he was actually at the less exclusive Oxford department of education. It is also alleged he gave false academic qualifications to get on the course, including three non-existent A-levels and a two-year US degree.
May 1964: Archer wins an Oxford blue running for the university athletics club. Some ask whether he is eligible to take part in Varsity matches but he goes on to have an impressive career in running and is, briefly, selected to represent England and Great Britain.
July 1966: Archer marries Mary Weeden at the university church, St Mary-the-Virgin. She describes herself in the marriage certificate as a "research graduate". Her husband claims to be one too, which he is not.
Politics (part one) - a rise and a fall
April 1967: Enters politics with a seat on Greater London council.
December 1969: Wins a by-election for the Tories in Louth, Lincolnshire, and, at 29 years old, becomes Britain's fourth youngest MP (not the youngest as it was later claimed).
1974: Resigns from parliament when he is declared bankrupt after Aquablast, a fraudulent Canadian cleaning firm in which he had invested his life savings, goes bust. In Toronto to give evidence relating to the Aquablast case, Archer is detained on suspicion of shoplifting, though no charges are brought.
A man of letters
April 1976: Archer re-enters public life with the publication of Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less. The book is not appreciated by the critics, but sells well, as do his other novels. He goes on to make a fortune with other titles such as Kane and Abel and the Prodigal Daughter.
Politics (part two)
September 1985: Appointed deputy chairman of the Conservative party. Lord Whitelaw warned the then prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, that he was "an accident waiting to happen".
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Aspersions on his reputation
October 1986: Archer resigns after it is reported he paid £2,000 to sleep with a prostitute.
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July 1987: He successfully sues the Daily Star. The judge, Mr Justice Caulfield, famously questions in his summing up why a man with such a "fragrant" wife would pay for sex. Archer is awarded £500,000 in damages.
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June 1992: Receives a peerage from John Major in recognition of his fundraising work for displaced Kurds. His title: Lord Archer of Weston-super-Mare.
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January 1994: Turns a £78,000 profit, on behalf of a friend, on Anglia TV shares during takeover negotiations. His wife is a member of the board, but following an investigation by the department of trade and industry no charge of insider dealing ensued.
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Politics (part three)
May 1997: Archer expresses an interest in becoming London mayor, a post to be created by the newly-elected Labour government. After two years' canvassing the electorate and studying the role of big city mayors worldwide, he believed the ups and downs of his life would endear him to the people. "When I go round the streets at night talking to people in doorways, they treat me as an equal," he told one interviewer. "They all say 'Jeffrey was in terrific debt, he's had his problems, he'll understand'." Less supportive were Lee Jasper, now a member of the mayor's advisory cabinet, and Trevor Philips, a potential Labour candidate - neither took kindly to his description of black women in the 1950s as "badly dressed [and] probably overweight".
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October 1999: Archer defeats Steven Norris by 15,716 votes to 6,350 to win the Tory candidacy for London mayor.
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November 1999: But is forced to stand down after the News of the World reports that he persuaded a former friend, Ted Francis, to lie to court in the 1987 libel trial. The Tory leader, William Hague, who previously described Archer as a candidate of "probity and integrity", now tells him he has "let the party down". Only months earlier, Archer had assured the party chairman, Michael Ancram, that there were no more damaging allegations about him which could resurface. He is suspended from the Tory party for five years and a perjury investigation begins.
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The final act
April 2000: Archer is arrested in connection with the allegations and questioned by Detective Superintendent Geoff Hunt, who had led the investigation into Jonathan Aitken's libel-case perjury.
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September 2000: His play, The Accused, opens at the Theatre Royal in Windsor to less than encouraging reviews. It stars Archer as a man accused of murdering his wife. In a break from dramatic convention, the audience becomes a jury and uses electronic keypads to pass judgement on the man in the dock. Most attention, however, derives from events in the hours before the curtain rises: Archer is committed to stand trial and charged with five counts including perjury and perverting the course of justice.
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July 2001: Archer is found guilty of two counts of perjury and two of perverting the course of justice.
Read the trial reports