Jane Austen Manuscript Fetches $1.6M At Auction

LONDON — An unfinished early Jane Austen manuscript sold at auction in London on Thursday for almost $1.6 million, triple its highest pre-sale estimate.

The draft of "The Watsons" sold for $1.601 million. The price includes a buyer's premium.

The auction house said the document sold to an anonymous buyer after extended four-way bidding in the salesroom.

The incomplete work is the earliest surviving manuscript for a novel by Austen, probably written in 1804 but not published in Austen's lifetime. Austen died in 1817 at age 41.

It centers on a family of four sisters, the daughters of a widowed clergyman

Sotheby's books specialist Gabriel Heaton said the heavily corrected draft "has afforded an extremely broad audience an insight into the author's writing process and reworkings."

Sotheby's says it is the only major manuscript by the author still in private hands.

Six Austen novels were published, including "Pride and Prejudice," but none of the original manuscripts survives.

Comments

[Kristin Toth Dach Homewood]

01:55 PM on 07/16/2011

Don't suppose there's any hope they'll release a published version... Please??? Pretty please???

[Gladys1963]

06:01 PM on 07/16/2011

I have no doubt it'll be published. That buyer won't want to deal with irate Austenites!

[ESerafina42]

05:04 PM on 07/17/2011

This isn't a new discovery or anything. The Watsons has been published, both in its uncompleted form and competed by Joan Aiken. Just search "Watsons Jane Austen" on any of the big bookstore sites. I haven't read the completed version but haven't been terribly impressed with Aiken's other Austen tie-ins. That could just be me, though.

[LibrarianBarb]

02:56 PM on 07/18/2011

I think i have read 3 completed The Watsons. The best one was written about 50 years ago and was the only one written by a man! The worst was written at least 100 yrs ago by a woman who claimed to be some descendant of Austens.
I have also read Aikens and was not that impressed with it - not that it was a bad book but it seemed to be very far from Austen in style and in the direction the story took.

[LibrarianBarb]

01:31 PM on 07/15/2011

Last year some of us who are Austen Addicts got up to the Pierpont Morgan to see the Austen exhibit - it included a copy of 'Lady Susan' which Austen wrote around 1794. It is a complete work but short but shows the sophistication of the author who went from that to 'Sense and Sensibility and 'Pride and Prejudice'. There were also some minor documents in Austens hand - it was a great display.