A fight has been launched to keep the life's work of one of Brighton's most famous writers in the town.

Two American universities are trying to take the manuscripts of Robin Maugham overseas.

But executors of Maugham's estate and his surviving relatives want to keep his plays, personal papers, press clippings and first drafts in the town where they were written back in the Sixties and Seventies.

Maugham, who died in 1981, won acclaim in these decades when he lived in Bute Street and Clifton Road, Brighton.

Much of his writing was based on his real life experiences, including his service in the Second World War.

Enemy, for example, is set in the Western Desert in Africa, where he served in an armoured unit under Field Marshal Montgomery. His novel The Servant was made into a film scripted by Harold Pinter and starring Dirk Bogarde and James Fox.

Manuscripts relating to the plays have been held in ten sealed boxes in the vaults of Wynne Baxter Godfree solicitors at Century House, Dyke Road, for 19 years.

They are the last part of Maugham's estate to be dealt with by the executors and have received intense interest from abroad.

Boston University is bidding for the documents which it hopes will complement its own extensive collection of renowned novelist Somerset Maugham, Robin's uncle, who died in 1965.

When word reached Texas University a bidding war broke out between the two universities, with each offering a "substantial sum" for the documents, which also include correspondence between the younger author and his mentor uncle.

Museums and historical organisations in Brighton and round the country have three months to present their case to Maugham's executors before the boxes are flown overseas.

Solicitor Jeremy Wheeler said he was hoping the collection can remain in the UK. It was part of Brighton's heritage.

"If anybody in England is interested and prepared to pay whatever the going rate might be, then our preference would be to sell to an English academic.

"We have no idea what they are worth because that is in the eye of the beholder."

He said the executors would like the collection to be housed where the materials would be available to academics and the public.

He said if no interest was forthcoming from museums and historical or literary institutes in Brighton or Britain, the manuscripts would go to auction - to the highest bidder.

A spokesman for Brighton and Hove Council said: "We do purchase manuscripts and historical work, but we would have to look at the value of the work because we have limited funds and it is taxpayers money."

Robin Maugham's only surviving relative has also said the manuscripts should not leave the country.

Diana Marr-Johnson, 90, who lives in the South East, said: "I would dearly love this material to remain in Brighton. My brother lived and wrote in Brighton. That is where the documents should stay."