Lots included Hardy's poem Souls Of The Slain

The top lot was the story written by Hardy and Florence Henniker, The Spectre of the Real, which sold for �55,450 - more than twice its pre-sale of �25,000.

And a first edition of Desperate Remedies, Hardy's first published book, set a new record for a cloth-bound first edition by the author when it sold for �32,450.

Key manuscripts

Some of the Hardy lots were bought by the Dorset County Museum, which holds the world's biggest collection of Hardy materials.

The museum had been raising money to fund its purchases but was outbid for some key manuscripts.

"Although we have gained some most interesting additions to our collection, there is no doubt that we are disappointed that we were outbid on virtually all the manuscript items we sought to purchase," said he museum's curator Richard de Peyer.

But the museum had successfully bid for 38 of the 80 lots it was interested in, he added.

"We continue to have the most comprehensive Hardy collection in the world and this has been added to today," he said.

'Great appeal'

Among the lots bought by the museum were sets of letters from Hardy to his friend Edmund Gosse and his wife Florence, and an autograph copy of his poem To Caroline Fox Hanbury On Her Christening Day.

A typescript of the Tess play was up for auction

"The bidding from across the world shows the great appeal of Hardy and people's deep affinity for his novels and poems," said auctioneer Peter Selley.

"We were pleased that the Dorset County Museum managed to secure a number of lots."

The auction also set records for other authors.

An inscribed 1922 edition of TS Eliot's The Waste Land sold for �91,250 - a new auction record for any work by Eliot.

And an inscribed presentation copy of AE Housman's A Shropshire Lad sold for �48,550 against a pre-sale maximum estimate of �9,000 - a record for Housman.

All the lots came from the collection of bibliophile Frederick B Adams Jr, one-time director of New York's Pierpont Morgan Library, who died in February.