Jeffrey Archer: First Among Equals (UK 2022)

From the Publisher:
First Among Equals is an exciting political drama, by master storyteller Jeffrey Archer.
In the 1960s, four ambitious new MPs take their seats at Westminster. Over three decades they share the turbulent passions and upheavals of the race for power with their wives and families, men and women caught up in a dramatic game for the highest stakes of all. But only one man can gain the ultimate goal -- the office of Prime Minister...

Jeffrey Archer: First Among Equals. Pan, ISBN: 9781529060027 (December, 2022), 496 p., £9.99.

Jeffrey Archer: First Among Equals (UK 2013)

From the Publisher:
In the 1960s, four ambitious new MPs take their seats at Westminster. Over three decades they share the turbulent passions and upheavals of the race for power with their wives and families, men and women caught up in a dramatic game for the highest stakes of all. But only one man can gain the ultimate goal -- the office of Prime Minister...

Jeffrey Archer: First Among Equals. Only one can triumph. Pan, ISBN: 9781447221814 (March, 2013), 480 p., £7.99.

Jeffrey Archer: First Among Equals (USA 2004)

From the Publisher:
Charles Seymour, second-born son, will never be the earl like his father, but he did inherit his mother's strength-and the will to realize his destiny... Simon Kerslake's father sacrificed everything to make sure his son's dreams come true. Now it is Simon's chance to rise as high as those dreams allow... Ray Gould was born to the back streets but raised with pride-a quality matched by a sharp intellect and the desire to attain the impossible... Andrew Fraser was raised by a soccer hero turned politician. Now it's his turn for heroics, whatever the cost.

From strangers to rivals, four men embark on a journey for the highest stakes of all-the keys to No. 10 Downing Street. Unfolding over three decades, their honor will be tested, their loyalties betrayed, and their love of family and country challenged. But in a game where there is a first among equals, only one can triumph.

Jeffrey Archer: First Among Equals. St. Martin's Press, ISBN: 0312997124 (May, 2004), 496 p., $7.99.

Jeffrey Archer: First Among Equals (USA 1985)

From the Publisher:
From Jeffrey Archer, author of the unforgettable Kane & Abel, comes a spellbinding tale of three extraordinary men who wage war for a prize that only one of them can win. Through three tumultuous decades of fierce rivalry, they vie for Britain's most powerful office... in a vital combat of love and hate, honor and deceit and the crueler ironies of fate. Their wives and lovers, each as compellingly unique as the men, are exquisitely captured by master storyteller Jeffrey Archer in the magnificent novel he was born to write.

Jeffrey Archer: First Among Equals. Pocket Books, ISBN: 0671504681 (August, 1985), 415 p., $4.50.

Jeffrey Archer: First Among Equals (UK 1985)

From the Publisher:
In the 1960s four ambitious new MPs take their seats at Westminster. Over three decades they share the explosive passions of the race for power with, their wives and families, men and women caught up in an explosive game for the highest stakes of all. But only one man can gain the ultimate goal -- the office of Prime Minister...

Jeffrey Archer: First Among Equals. Coronet Books, ISBN: 0340363703 (June, 1985), 466 p., £2.75.

Jeffrey Archer: First Among Equals (USA 1984)

From the Publisher:
First Among Equals is the novel Jeffrey Archer was born to write. like his Kane & Abel, it is a story of titanic rivalry. Like The Prodigal Daughter it is an explosive mixture of passion and politics. And like any novel destined to be a major best seller, it is a story so inventive, so compelling, that it is ultimately unlike any other.

The actors are three fiercely ambitious young men -- utterly different from one another, but bound together by their singleminded pursuit of the same goal. The field of battle is Britain's Parliament, where competition is waged with an exquisite politeness that only masks its ferocity. And the ultimate prize is the highest office in the land. From the time the men enter Parliament, it is a three-way race to the day -- three decades later-- when one will be called to Buckingham Palace to accept the office of Prime Minister.

Raymond Gould is the scholarship student born above a butcher shop, fired by ambition from the time he is twelve, sure of his path. His only mistake: the luckless shotgun marriage that has tied him down to a small-town wife. His only doubt: whether he can risk compounding his error when he meets the woman he truly loves --

Charles Hampton is Raymond's opposite. With his beautiful thoroughbred wife, his patrician back-ground, his family bank, he is literally to the manor born. But his rivals underestimate both the hidden troubles in Charles's polished life and the lengths to which he will go to surmount them --

Simon Kerslake is the consummate statesman, willing to take on the riskiest job in England in the name of Queen and Country. He's also that rarity among politicians -- a husband and father whose wife is his equal, with a career of her own. In fact, he's perfect -- until the banks start looking into his finances --

Through all the permutations of mutual affection and enmity, honor and deceit, these three men are joined by the women in their lives: Elizabeth Kerslake, who fears sacrificing her medical career if she is to support Simon's goals -- and who could never have anticipated the much greater sacrifice that is asked of her: Joyce Gould, patient, understanding, forgiving, who knows much more than her husband guesses about politics -- and about the politics of marriage: Fiona Hampton, the ideal politician's wife... shrewed enough to advance her husbands interests, while at the same time looking after her own.

As all these lifes cross (and double-cross) in the race for power, the reader comes to care about all three men. But only one can win.

Jeffrey Archer, who was himself the youngest Member of Parliament in the 1960s, here combines his own background with his greatest gifts as a novelist. First Among Equals presents a cast of undelible characters in a tale of headlong tension, played out against the dazzling backdrops of the only country in the world where power and pageantry are inextricably linked. With his new novel, the author confirms what millions of readers already know: Jeffrey Archer is first among storytellers.

Jeffrey Archer: First Among Equals. A Novel. Linden Press / Simon & Schuster, ISBN: 0671504061 (July, 1984), 415 p., $16.95.