On July 14, Jane Austen’s never-published, unfinished manuscript, The Watsons, went to auction by Sotheby’s in New York. Sotheby’s, the auctioneers, sold the manuscript for $1.6 million. Austen reportedly began The Watsons soon after drafting Sense and Sensibility, but after writing about one quarter of a full manuscript, she gave up the endeavor. The manuscript, hand-written, features notes and edits by the author herself.

“It’s very much a working draft,” said Gabriel Heaton, who works for Sotheby’s. “You can see how her mind was moving; how she’s refining and sharpening her text as she revises.”

This was the last of Austen’s manuscripts to still be privately owned. All of Jane Austen’s fiction manuscripts, including The Watsons, can be found online in a free-to-peruse digital collection at http://www.janeausten.ac.uk/index.html.

Source: Jacket Copy, book blog of the Los Angeles Times.