Jane Austen Manuscript Sale Generates Local Interest

While Harry Potter breaks box office records, a lesser-known work turned a tidy profit this week, as well. Jane Austen's unpublished manuscript of "The Watsons," a book she never completed, sold for $1.6 million at auction Thursday, according to the Los Angeles Times. The handwritten manuscript, which was expected to sell for $330,000 to $490,000 isn’t complete; the first 12 pages of the novel-in-progress are at New York's Morgan Library and Museum. The purchaser was the Bodleian Library, Oxford University.

The books sell, movies are made regularly, and the Jane Austen Society of North America has 65 regional groups across the United States and Canada. Local Austen fans belong or attend events at two, the Central New Jersey and the Metropolitan New York societies. So what explains Austen’s staying power during the past two centuries?

 “You mean, besides Colin Firth in a wet white shirt in the A&E version of Pride and Prejudice?” jokes Meredith Barnes, Regional Coordinator for the Central NJ chapter.

“I think the longevity of these books is because regardless of the time that they were written in, the people in them live every day, even now. Kipling proved this in his short story the Janeites,” she says.

“Modern authors prove it day in and out with the variety of adaptations that exist. Her characters are alive,” explains Barnes. “We know them, or at least parts of them, in the co-worker or the aunt who talks incessantly like Miss Bates, the imperious neighbor down the street always trying to prove her worthiness like Lady Catherine DeBourgh, and the sister or best friend who will listen to you bemoan dating until the wee hours of the night like Jane or Elinor.”

The manuscript will be available for public viewing in Oxford, starting this fall.  Fortunately for those us who are in NJ or eager to read, Austen’s novels are in print, audiobook, e-book, and on film. (And if you’re curious, Barnes recommends the A&E version of Pride and Prejudice, though the Keira Knightly version works as a “quick fix.”)

And we have fellow readers, “Janeites,” with whom to share the books. The Central NJ chapter holds an annual Box Hill Picnic, which will be held at the Battle of Monmouth grounds on August 13.

At our picnic meeting, we usually share something from the novel that we enjoy or will start a discussion,” says Barnes. “We eat our lunches and have dessert. It is a very pleasant way to spend the afternoon. Some chapters have actually gone strawberry picking while others have a more formal tea to celebrate the occasion.”

For more information on joining or attending the picnic, click www.cnjjasna.org to sign up for an e-newsletter. Readers can also contact centraljerseyJASNA@yahoo.com.