Authors' unique responses to Austen auctioned by RSL

Authors and artists including Margaret Atwood, Hilary Mantel and Quentin Blake have created one-off, hand-written responses to Jane Austen to be auctioned in aid of the Royal Society of Literature.

The literary artefacts have been created to mark the bicentenary of Austen's death.

The auction lot includes Atwood writing on how Austen’s novels “set a bad example”, a new unpublished story by Mantel based on Pride & Prejudice, Ian McEwan on the “profound influence” of Northanger Abbey on his novel Atonement, Blake inspired by Austen’s sister, Ian Rankin on disliking “stuffy” Jane Austen and Sarah Waters turning cartoonist for “a good read”.

The auction also includes original works by Grayson Perry, Tracey Chevalier, Jacqueline Wilson and Kazuo Ishiguro, and an annotated script by Andrew Davies from the "Pride & Prejudice" TV series starring Colin Firth.

Bids are open to the public from the auction website in advance of the private fundraising event on 27th June.