Austen's Emma Watson Finds a New Home

On July 14, the day before the premiere of the last Harry Potter film, Sotheby's auctioned the story of Emma Watson for over $1.6 million.  



By AP Images 

No, not the Emma Watson known for playing the role of Hermione Granger, Harry's brainy witch friend.  

Emma Watson, the worrywart minor character on The Andy Griffith Show?  Guess again.  

Not Emma Woodhouse, matchmaker extraordinaire, but Emma Watson, the heroine of an unfinished Jane Austen manuscript, commonly known as The Watsons.  

Austen began The Watsons in 1803, but abandoned it two years later when her father died.

By Ben Sutherland

The unfinished manuscript is the only known copy, an early draft written in Austen's own hand and peppered with corrections and afterthoughts.

This intriguing tale follows the refined Emma, who has been raised by her aunt, as she returns home to live with her father and sisters.  Less cultured than she, Emma's sisters are shameless in their pursuit of husbands.  Deliciously ill-made matches and tension follow.  

One of the last Austen manuscripts to have been privately owned, The Watsons now belongs to the highest bidder - Oxford University's Bodleian Library.

There is, perhaps, nothing more frustrating than a story without an ending.  If completed, The Watsons would have been counted as a classic along with Miss Austen's other six novels. 

Nevertheless, to read this piece of unfinished business is to get a raw and intimate look into the author's mind and her musings.  To read the beginning of The Watsons and learn how the story would have ended, click here.