Unpublished Bronte manuscript sells at auction

Charlotte Bronte. Photo / Thinkstock

An unpublished Charlotte Bronte manuscript has sold for a record £690,850 at auction.

The Young Men's Magazine, Number 2, was written when Charlotte was 14 and is set in Glass Town, the earliest fictional world created by the Bronte siblings.

Sotheby's had estimated it would sell for between £200,000 and £300,000 at the English Literature, History, Children's Books and Illustrations sale on Thursday.

But the manuscript sold for more than double the top estimate, setting new auction records for a manuscript by Charlotte Bronte and for a literary work by any of the Bronte sisters.

The book contains more than 4000 words on 19 pages, each measuring about 35mm by 61mm.

It is dated August 1830 - 17 years before Bronte wrote Jane Eyre - and is said to have never before been seen by scholars.

Prior to the sale, Sotheby's said it is the most important Bronte manuscript to appear at auction in more than 30 years and is one of only a handful of such pieces remaining in private ownership.

Dr Philip Errington, director and senior specialist at the auction house, said: "Sotheby's was honoured to sell a manuscript of such rarity and huge literary significance and the record price set today reflects the international interest in Charlotte Bronte's work.

Gabriel Heaton, Sotheby's senior specialist in the books and manuscripts departments, said the manuscript marked Charlotte Bronte's "first burst of creativity" and provided "a rare and intimate insight into one of history's great literary minds".

"It contains a colourful tale of murder and madness which includes a precursor to one of the most famous scenes in Jane Eyre - the moment Bertha, Mr Rochester's insane wife, seeks revenge by setting fire to the bed curtains in her husband's chamber," he said.

Other lots sold at the auction at New Bond Street in London on Thursday included a boxed set of Stieg Larsson's Millennium Trilogy, including the original letter of rejection sent to Larsson in 1972 by the Joint Committee of Colleges of Journalism and an original pencil portrait by the author.

The portrait had never been seen by the public and the whole collection sold for £9000.

A book inscribed by Charles Darwin, The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, was estimated at between £15,000 and £20,000 but sold for £61,250.

-AAP