Pursuits
Soccer Rule Book, Jane Austen’s Papers Fetch $3 Million
This article is for subscribers only.
A Jane Austen manuscript and the earliest set of club-soccer rules today fetched a total of $3 million, the top lots of a Sotheby’s auction in London.
The original draft of Austen’s unfinished novel “The Watsons” fetched 993,250 pounds ($1.6 million) with fees, three times its presale high estimate of 300,000 pounds at hammer prices. It sold to an unidentified buyer in the room after a battle between four bidders in the 159-lot sale of English literature and history.