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

The incomplete, handwritten work — the earliest surviving manuscript of a novel by Austen — had been valued at $300,000 to $460,000 by auction house Sotheby's.

Titled The Watsons and believed written in 1804, it centres on a young woman who returns home to her father and sisters after having been brought up by a wealthy aunt.

Originally owned privately, it was purchased by an institution after a four-way bidding war.

Sotheby's books specialist Gabriel Heaton said the draft, with its many corrections and heavy editing, "has afforded an extremely broad audience an insight into the author's writing process and reworkings."

Few of Austen's drafts have survived, with the exception of two chapters of Persuasion, Lady Susan and Sanditon.

The author of Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice wrote six novels before she died at age 41 in 1817.

Several authors have attempted to finish The Watsons, including Austen's niece, Catherine Hubback, who published it in the 19th century under the title The Younger Sister.

With files from the Associated Press