Manuscripts and personal documents belonging to Oxford detective novelist Dorothy L. Sayers go under the hammer on December 19.

Dorothy L Sayers The sale at Sotheby's in London has attracted worldwide interest and is expected to raise £35,000 from the sale of up to 300 items.

Dorothy Leigh Sayers was born in Oxford in 1893 and she was educated in Salisbury and later at Somerville College, Oxford. She died in 1957.

Her detective hero, Lord Peter Wimsey, appeared in the novel Whose Body in 1928 and in a further eight stories.

Mr Peter Shelley, a books and manuscripts specialist at Sotheby's, said: "Sayers was unquestionably one of the greatest detective writers of the 20th century, and this archive contains much autograph and typescript material."