The Watsons

The Watsons is an abandoned novel by Jane Austen, probably begun about 1803. There have been a number of arguments advanced as to why she did not complete it, and other authors have since attempted the task. A continuation by Austen's niece was published in 1850. The manuscript fragment itself was published in 1871. Further completions and adaptations of the story have continued to the present day. History Jane Austen began work on an untitled novel about 1803, while she was living in Bath, and probably abandoned it after her father's death in January 1805. It had no formal chapter divisions and was approximately 7,500 words long. The fragment was given the title of The Watsons and published in 1871 by the novelist's nephew, James Edward Austen-Leigh (1798–1874), in the revised and augmented edition of his A Memoir of Jane Austen. The original manuscript covered eighty pages, now divided between the Morgan Library & Museum, New York, and the Bodleian Library, Oxford. On Jane Austen's death the manuscript was inherited by her sister Cassandra, and then passed to other family relations until it was divided up in 1915. The smaller part was later acquired by the Morgan Library in 1925 and the remaining larger portion went through various hands until it was bought by the Bodleian in 2011. There are erasures and corrections to the manuscript and in three cases there were substantial revisions written on small pieces of paper and pinned in place over the cancelled portions. Synopsis The timeframe of the completed fragment covers about a fortnight, and serves to introduce the main characters. Mr Watson is a widowed and ailing clergyman with two sons and four daughters. The youngest daughter, Emma, the heroine of the story, has been brought up by a wealthy aunt and is consequently better educated and more refined than her sisters. But after her aunt contracted a foolish second marriage, Emma has been obliged to return to her father's house. There she is chagrined by the crude and reckless husband-hunting of two of her sisters, Penelope and Margaret. One particular focus for them is Tom Musgrave, who had paid attention to all of the sisters in the past. This Emma learns from her more responsible and kindly eldest sister Elizabeth.