A rare Jane Austen manuscript has sold for £993,250 ($1.6m) in London, three times more than its estimated price.

Auction house Sotheby's had originally valued the unfinished novel - entitled The Watsons - at £200,000-300,000.

The manuscript, originally owned privately, was purchased by the Bodelian Libraries of Oxford.

It is thought Austen wrote the tale, about a young woman who returns home to her father's household after being brought up by a wealthy aunt, in 1804.

The work is particularly important because few of Austen's draft works have survived, with the exception of two draft chapters of Persuasion, Lady Susan, and Sanditon....