The first volume recounts his childhood in the Slad Valley. His most notable work is the autobiographical trilogy Cider with Rosie (1959), As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning (1969), and A Moment of War (1991). Laurence Edward Alan Lee, MBE (26 June 1914 – ) was an English poet, novelist and screenwriter, who was brought up in the small village of Slad in Gloucestershire. He died of cancer in Slad in 1997, at the age of 82, and is buried in the local churchyard.Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire Sixty years ago this month he was caption-writer-in-chief for the Festival of Britain, a service which earned him the Order of the British Empire in 1952. Lee worked as a journalist and as a scriptwriter before becoming a full-time novelist, and during the second world war made documentary films for the General Post Office film unit (1939–40) and the Crown Film Unit (1941–43). The third book tells of his return to Spain to join the Republican International Brigades. The second book deals with his move to London and his first trip to Spain. It was followed by As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning (1969) and A Moment of War (1991) and is an account of Lee's childhood in Slad after the first world war. Cider with Rosie has sold more than six million copies worldwide and was the first book of a trilogy. Lee said the Corona typewriter was one of those used regularly by her husband, whose famous 1959 novel is a classic chronicle of rural life and is studied by schoolchildren as an English literature set text. Philip Taubenheim, director at Wotton Auctions Rooms, said: 'The pieces are modest in nature – a true reflection of the austere rural life of his earlier days.' The auction, which runs on Tuesday and Wednesday, will also include a clock removed from the Queen's Elm pub in Chelsea, one of Lee's favourite London haunts. 'He would have sat on the smaller chair at his desk while he worked,' she said. The Windsor chair in elm and beech wood has an estimate of £100-£150 and the library chair of £60-£80. It is a question of making more room for us.'

'We are only putting a few things in the sale. 'I would have thought someone who is fond of Laurie's writing might like to have it,' Lee's widow said yesterday. The typewriter has a low estimated price of between £40 and £60.

Cathy Lee, the wife of the novelist who died in 1997, has instructed Wotton Auction Rooms to sell the typewriter, an 18th-century comb-back Windsor chair, a Victorian library chair and a large chest.

Author of cider with rosie