WBRZ - Baton Rouge

The Sotheby's auction house is selling an early Jane Austen manuscript, the only one still in private hands. Sotheby's says the draft for the "The Watsons" is the earliest surviving manuscript for a novel by Austen that was probably written in 1804. The estimated worth is $322,000 to $482,995. What makes it especially rare is that it is incomplete and was written before Austen was a published writer. The story is about a family of four sisters, the daughters of a widowed clergyman and it was not published during Austen's lifetime. It goes on sale in London on July14.