‘The Watsons’ is Jane Austen’s first extant draft of a novel in process of development, and one of the earliest examples of an English novel to survive in its formative state.
Only seven manuscripts of fiction by Austen are known to survive. In addition to ‘The Watsons’ and ‘Volume the First’ at the Bodleian, the other manuscripts are at the British Library (two volumes of juvenilia and a fragment of ‘Persuasion’), King’s College, Cambridge (‘Sanditon’) and the Pierpont Morgan Library, New York (‘Lady Susan’). A fragment of ‘The Watsons’ also survives at the Pierpont Morgan Library in New York.
Item Provenance
Jane Austen’s sister Cassandra (d.1845); her niece Caroline Mary Craven Austen, the younger daughter of their eldest brother James; Caroline Austen’s nephew, William Austen-Leigh (who donated the first six leaves to a charity sale for the Red Cross Society, Christie's, 26 April 191l, lot 1520, now in the Pierpont Morgan Library, New York); in Austen-Leigh family ownership (though much of the time on deposit in the British Museum) until 1978 when it was sold at Sotheby’s for £38,000 to the British Rail Pension Fund. Sold again at Sotheby’s, 1988 for £90,000; a private collector, who deposited it on loan at Queen Mary College, University of London; Sotheby's 14 July 2011, lot 51.
Jane Austen, 'The Watsons'. FNL grant 2011. Image courtesy of the Bodleian Library.