Sotheby’s auction house says an unpublished Charlotte Bronte manuscript has sold for a record 690,850 pounds ($1.1 million) at auction, more than double the price expected.
The Young Men’s Magazine, Number 2, was written in 1830 when the author was 14. It is set in Glass Town, the earliest fictional world created by the Bronte siblings.
Sotheby’s had predicted the manuscript would sell for between 200,000 and 300,000 pounds, but said Thursday the final sale price set new auction records for Bronte and for a literary work by any of the Bronte sisters.
The auction house says that the Musee des Lettres et Manuscrits in Paris placed the winning bid following "a tense bidding battle."
It says the manuscript had never been seen by scholars until its appearance at auction.