Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less was published by Jonathan Cape in 1976. Four men — a doctor, an Oxford don, a French art dealer, and a lord — are swindled out of a million dollars by Harvey Metcalfe, a crooked financier, in a fraudulent stock deal. Rather than go to the police (the fraud is technically legal), they conspire to recover their money through a series of elaborate confidence tricks, each tailored to Metcalfe’s specific weaknesses.
The novel was born from Archer’s own experience: in 1974, he lost his entire fortune in a fraudulent investment and was forced to resign from Parliament. He wrote the novel to pay his debts — a fact that gives the revenge fantasy its particular energy. The quartet’s determination to recover “not a penny more, not a penny less” carries the emotional weight of genuine financial ruin.
The caper structure (four distinct heists, each executed by a different member of the group) gives the novel its architecture, and Archer’s eye for social detail — the specific manners of different classes, the vulnerabilities that wealth creates — drives the individual schemes.
Collecting Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less
First edition (Jonathan Cape, London, 1976): Boards with dust jacket.
Market values:
- Fine in dust jacket: $300–$800
- Very good: $100–$300
- Signed first edition: $500–$1,500
Projected values (2026–2036): Strong appreciation. As Archer’s debut, first editions are scarce and increasingly sought after.
Frequently Asked Questions
How did Jeffrey Archer come to write this novel? Archer was nearly bankrupt after a fraudulent investment scheme cost him his fortune. He wrote Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less in 1974 to recover financially, basing the con-artist plot partly on his own experience of being swindled. The novel sold well enough to launch his literary career.
Is the fraud in the novel based on a real scam? The specific scheme is fictional, but Archer’s personal experience of losing his savings to a Canadian investment fraud in the early 1970s informed the story’s emotional authenticity.