Ancillary Materials: Diplomatic DisplayLondon; Cambridge; New York,
RWChapman, regular-black 30.7.50I post the MS. tomorrow. The missing word (p.67, line 3and lower down) is Bonnet. It is illegible in l.3, but in the lower place Miss Lascelles saw that the top of the B is obscured byRegency. Very pretty.
RWC.
No. Word begins with "P" and must mean "jacket & walking dress" - see erasure below. (Just as Regency walking dress is evidently"Bonnet & Pelisse")
WAustenLeigh, regular-black 23 March 1915Mr . W. Austen Leigh presents his compliments and encloses an original MS of Jane Austen, to be added to the forthcoming Red Cross sale of artistic &literary collections.
DAustenLeigh, regular-black Apr.29.25To Messrs Charles J. Sawyer.
J. Austen MS.
Dear Sirs
You were enquiring about theremaining portion of the MS of TheWatsons by Jane Austen of which you possess the first pages. The remainder is the joint property of Mr L. A. Austen-Leigh & his threesisters.
I may say that we have nointention of selling it.
Yrs faithfully
(Miss) Dorothy Austen-Leigh
RWC, typescript R. W. Chapman, Letter addressed to Miss
Greene,Dec. 12, 1925, concerning "The Watsons":-
"When I was working at The Watsons, I borrowed the first 12 leaves from Lady Ludlow, who bought them at a Red Cross sale in 1918, to which they had been sent by the late W. Austen Leigh. The rest of the MS belongs to a group of nephews and neices who wont sell, but they lent it to me and it is in my safe at the moment. Lady Ludlow on the other hand, has sold the first 12 leaves, and the man Sawyer in Grafton St. has just catalogued itfor £385. This is a monstrous price....."
WAustenLeigh, regular-black These are the first twelve pages of an unfinished
Novel by Jane Austen. The author had given no title to it;
but, for the sake of distinction, the fragment was called "The
Watsons" by her nephew and first biographer, the Rev. James Edward
Austen Leigh, when, in answer to many requests, he published it in
the second edition of his "Memoirs of Jane Austen"; an edition
which ap-peared, under the title "Lady Susan," in 1871
(RichardBentley and Son, 1871.)
The MS have no date, but Mr . Austen Leigh says, in a Preface which is attached to it, "On a close inspection of the original manuscript, the water-marks of 1803, and 1804, were found in the paper on which it was written. It is, therefore, probable, that it was composed at Bath, before she ceased to reside there in 1805. This would place the date a few years later then the composition, but earlier than the publication,of 'Sense and Sensibility' and 'Pride and Prejudice.'
The MS was bequeathed by Jane Austen's
