Freddie Mercury’s extensive collection of ‘exquisite clutter’ to go up for auction

An extensive collection of costumes, fine art, and even handwritten working lyrics belonging to Freddie Mercury, the lead vocalist of rock band Queen, will be auctioned in September.

Queen's frontman had said he wanted to live a Victorian life surrounded by "exquisite clutter," and he left it all to his close friend, Mary Austin, when he died, at 45, of AIDS-related pneumonia in 1991.

Austin, who has kept most of it the way Mercury left it in his home in the upscale Kensington neighborhood of London, said she had reached the "difficult decision" that it was time to sell it all, Sotheby's said.