Anna Leonowens
Encyclopedia
Anna Leonowens was an English
travel writer, educator, and social activist. She worked in Siam from 1862 to 1868, where she taught the wives and children of Mongkut
, king of Siam. She also co-founded the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. Leonowens's experiences in Siam were fictionalised in Margaret Landon
's 1944 bestselling novel Anna and the King of Siam
and in various films and television miniseries based on the book, most notably Rodgers and Hammerstein
's 1951 hit musical The King and I
.
, India on 5 November 1831. She was the second daughter of Sergeant
Thomas Edwards of the Sappers and Miners
, a former London
cabinetmaker, and his Anglo-Indian
wife, Mary Anne Glasscott, daughter of a lieutenant
in the Bombay Army
. For most of her adult life, Leonowens was estranged from her family and took pains to disguise her modest origins by writing that she had been born a Crawford in Caernarfon
and giving her father's rank
as captain. By doing so, she protected not only herself but her children, who would have had greater opportunities if their mixed-race heritage remained unknown. Investigations uncovered no record of her birth at Caernarfon, news which came as a shock to the town that had long claimed her as one of its most famous natives.
Leonowens' father died before she was born
, and her mother married an Irish
soldier, Corporal Patrick Donohoe
of the Engineers
, who was later awarded the Victoria Cross
for bravery in Bombay during the Indian Mutiny. In 1845, her 15-year-old sister, Eliza Julia Edwards, married Edward John Pratt, a 38-year-old British
civil servant who had served in the Indian Navy
. One of their grandsons was the actor William Henry Pratt, better known as Boris Karloff
. Because Edward John Pratt was also an Anglo-Indian, Leonowens never approved of her sister's marriage, and her disconnect from the family was so complete that decades later, when a Pratt relative contacted her, she replied threatening suicide if he persisted.
Leonowens' relationship with her stepfather Donohoe was not a happy one, and she later accused him of putting pressure on her, like her sister (with whom she also fell out), to marry a much older man. In 1847 the family went to Aden
, to where Donohoe had been seconded as assistant supervisor of public works
. Here Leonowens was taught by the resident chaplain
and orientalist
, the Revd. George Percy Badger
, and his wife Maria, a missionary
schoolmistress. The Badgers recognised the girl's aptitude for languages and in 1849 they took her with them on a tour through Egypt
and Palestine
.
clerk rather than the army officer of her romantic memoir), over the objections of her stepfather and mother. In 1852 the young couple, accompanied by Anna's uncle W.V. Glasscott, sailed to Australia
via Singapore
, where they boarded the barque Alibi. The journey from Singapore was long and Anna gave birth to a son, Thomas, on board. On 8 March 1853, nearing the Western Australian coast, the Alibi was almost wrecked on a reef. Ten days later Anna, Thomas, their new born son and Glasscott arrived in Perth
where Thomas quickly found employment as a clerk in the colonial administration.
In Perth
, Anna, at this time going by her middle name, Harriett, tried to start a school for young ladies. In March 1854 her son died, and later that year a daughter, Avis Annie was born. In 1855 the Leonowens family moved to Lynton
, a remote convict depot north of Geraldton where Thomas was appointed the Commissariat
Storekeeper and Anna gave birth to their son Louis
there. By early 1857 the Lynton Convict Depot
had closed and the Leonowens family were back in Perth, but in April 1857 sailed to Singapore
. Later moving to Penang
, Thomas found work as a hotel
keeper
, only to die of apoplexy
, leaving Anna Leonowens an impoverished widow. Thomas Leonowens was buried on 7 May 1859 in the Protestant Cemetery in Penang. Of their four children, the two eldest had died in infancy. To support her surviving daughter Avis and son Louis
, Leonowens again took up teaching, and opened a school for the children of British officers in Singapore
. While the enterprise was not a financial success, it established her reputation as an educator.
consul
in Singapore, Tan Kim Ching
, to teach the wives and children of Mongkut
, King
of Siam
. The king wished to give his 39 wives and concubines and 82 children a modern Western education
on scientific
secular
lines, which earlier missionaries'
wives had not provided. Leonowens sent her daughter Avis to school in England
, and took her son Louis
with her to Bangkok
. She succeeded Dan Beach Bradley
, an American
missionary, as teacher to the Siamese court
.
Leonowens served at court until 1867, a period of nearly six years, first as a teacher and later as language secretary for the king. Although her position carried great respect and even a degree of political influence, she did not find the terms and conditions of her employment to her satisfaction, and came to be regarded by the king himself as a 'difficult woman and more difficult than generality'.
In 1868, Leonowens was on leave for her health in England and had been negotiating a return to the court on better terms when Mongkut fell ill and died. The king mentioned Leonowens and her son in his will
, though they did not receive the legacy. The new monarch, fifteen-year-old Chulalongkorn
, who succeeded his father, wrote Leonowens a warm letter of thanks for her services. He did not invite her to resume her post but they corresponded amicably for many years. Of note is that, at the age of 27, Louis Leonowens returned to Siam and was granted a commission of Captain in the Royal Cavalry. Chulalongkorn made reforms for which his former tutor claimed some of the credit, including the abolition of the practice of prostration
before the royal person. However, many of those same reforms were goals established by his father.
, where she opened a school for girls for a brief period on Staten Island, and began contributing travel articles to a Boston
journal, Atlantic Monthly, including 'The Favorite of the Harem', reviewed by the New York Times as 'an Eastern love story, having apparently a strong basis of truth'. She expanded her articles into two volumes of memoirs, beginning with The English Governess at the Siamese Court (1870), which earned her immediate fame but also brought charges of sensationalism. In her writing, she casts a critical eye over court life; the account is not always a flattering one, and has become the subject of controversy in Thailand
; she has also been accused of exaggerating her influence with the king.
Leonowens was a feminist
and in her writings she tended to focus on what she saw as the subjugated status of Siamese women, including those sequestered within the Nang Harm, or royal harem
. She emphasised that although Mongkut had been a forward-looking ruler, he had desired to preserve customs such as prostration and sexual slavery
which seemed unenlightened and degrading. The sequel, Romance of the Harem (1873), incorporates tales based on palace gossip, including the king's alleged torture and execution of one of his concubines, Tuptim; the story lacks independent corroboration and is dismissed as out of character for the king by some critics. A great granddaughter, Princess Vudhichalerm Vudhijaya (b. 21 May 1934), stated in a 2001 interview: 'King Mongkut was in the monk's
hood for 27 years before he was king. He would never have ordered an execution. It is not the Buddhist
way.' She added that the same Tuptim was her grandmother and had married Chulalongkorn. (He had 36 wives.)
While in the United States Leonowens also earned much-needed money through popular lecture tours. At venues such as the house of Mrs. Sylvanus Reed in Fifty-third Street, New York City, in the regular members' course at Association Hall, or under the auspices of bodies such as the Long Island Historical Society
, she lectured on subjects including 'Christian Missions to Pagan Lands' and 'The Empire of Siam, and the City of the Veiled Women'. The New York Times reported: 'Mrs. Leonowens' purpose is to awaken an interest, and enlist sympathies, in behalf of missionary labors, particularly in their relation to the destiny of Asiatic women.' She joined the literary circles of New York and Boston and made the acquaintance of local lights on the lecture circuit, such as Oliver Wendell Holmes
, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
and Harriet Beecher Stowe
, author of Uncle Tom's Cabin
, a book whose anti-slavery
message Leonowens had brought to the attention of the royal household. She said the book influenced Chulalongkorn's reform of slavery in Siam, a process he had begun in 1868, and which would end with its total abolition in 1915.
, Manhattan
, beginning on October 5, 1880; this was a new preparatory school
for colleges and schools of science and her presence was advertised in the press.
Leonowens visited Russia
in 1881 and other Europe
an countries, and continued to publish travel articles and books. She settled in Halifax
, Nova Scotia
, Canada
, where she again became involved in women's education, and was a suffragette
and one of the founders of the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. After nineteen years, she moved to Montreal
, Quebec
.
Leonowens's daughter, Avis, married Thomas Fyshe, a Scottish
bank
er who ended the family's money worries, while her son, Louis
, returned to Siam
and became an officer in the Siamese royal cavalry
. He married Caroline Knox, a daughter of Sir Thomas George Knox, the British consul-general in Bangkok
(1824–1887), and his Thai wife, Prang Yen. Under Chulalongkorn's patronage, Louis Leonowens founded the successful trading company that still bears his name. The Louis T. Leonowens Co.Ltd. is still running business in Thailand up until present time.
Anna Leonowens met Chulalongkorn again when he visited London in 1897, thirty years after she had left Siam, and the king took the opportunity to express his thanks in person.
Anna Leonowens died on January 19, 1915, at 83 years of age. She was interred in Mount Royal Cemetery
in Montreal
.
's novel Anna and the King of Siam
(1944) provides a fictionalised look at Anna Leonowens's years at the royal court, developing the abolitionist
theme that resonated with her American readership. In 1946, Talbot Jennings and Sally Benson adapted it into the screenplay
for a dramatic film of the same name, starring Irene Dunne
and Rex Harrison
. In response, Thai authors Seni
and Kukrit Pramoj
wrote their own account in 1948 and sent it to American politician and diplomat Abbot Low Moffat (1901–1996), who drew on it for his biography Mongkut, the King of Siam (1961). Moffat donated the Pramoj brothers' manuscript to the Library of Congress
in 1961.
Landon had, however, created the iconic image of Leonowens, and 'in the mid-20th century she came to personify the eccentric Victorian
female traveler'. The novel was adapted as a hit musical comedy by Rodgers and Hammerstein
, The King and I
(1951), starring Gertrude Lawrence
and Yul Brynner
, which ran 1,246 performances on Broadway
. In 1956, a film version was released, with Deborah Kerr
starring in the role of Leonowens and Brynner reprising his role as the king. Revived many times on stage (with Brynner starring in a number of revivals), the musical has remained a favourite of the theatre-going public. However the humorous depiction of Mongkut as a polka
-dancing despot
, as well as the king's and Anna's apparent romantic feeling for each other, is condemned as disrespectful in Bangkok, where the Rodgers and Hammerstein film was banned by the Thai Government. The 1946 film version of Anna and the King of Siam starring Rex Harrison as Mongkut was allowed to be shown in Thailand, although it was banned in newly independent India as an inaccurate insult by westerners to an Eastern king. (In 1950, the Thai Government did not permit the film to be shown for the second time in Thailand.) The books Romance in the Harem and An English Governess at the Siamese Court were not banned in Thailand either. There were even Thai translation of these books by respected Thai writer "Humorist" (Ob Chaivasu).
During a visit to the USA in 1960, the present monarch of Thailand, Bhumibol
, a great-grandson of Mongkut, and his entourage explained that from what they could gather from the reviews of the musical, the characterisation of Mongkut seemed "90 percent exaggerated. My great-grandfather was really quite a mild and nice man." Years later however, during her 1985 visit to New York, Queen Sirikit of Thailand went to see the Broadway musical at the invitation of Yul Brynner. The then Ambassador of Thailand to the US gave another reason for Thailand's disapproval of The King and I: its ethno-centric attitude and its barely hidden insult on the whole Siamese nation as childish and inferior to the Westerners.
In 1972, Twentieth Century Fox produced a non-musical American TV series for CBS
, Anna and the King
, with Samantha Eggar
taking the part of Leonowens and Brynner reprising his role as the king. Margaret Landon charged the makers with 'inaccurate and mutilated portrayals' of her literary property and sued unsuccessfully for copyright infringement. The series was not a success and was canceled after only 13 episodes. In 1999 an animated version
of the musical was released by Warner Bros. Animation
. In the same year, Jodie Foster
and Chow Yun-fat
starred in a new feature-length cinematic remake, also entitled Anna and the King
. One Thai critic complained that the film-makers had made Mongkut 'appear like a cowboy'; this version was also banned by censors in Thailand.
Leonowens appears as a character in Paul Marlowe
's novel Knights of the Sea, in which she travels from Halifax to Baddeck in 1887 to take part in a campaign to promote women's suffrage during a by-election
.
} Being Recollections of Six Years in the Royal Palace at Bangkok, by Anna Leonowens, from Project Gutenberg
.
}, from Google Books (PDF available).
English people
The English are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity is of early mediaeval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn. England is now a country of the United Kingdom, and the majority of English people in England are British Citizens...
travel writer, educator, and social activist. She worked in Siam from 1862 to 1868, where she taught the wives and children of Mongkut
Mongkut
Phra Bat Somdet Phra Poramenthramaha Mongkut Phra Chom Klao Chao Yu Hua , or Rama IV, known in foreign countries as King Mongkut , was the fourth monarch of Siam under the House of Chakri, ruling from 1851-1868...
, king of Siam. She also co-founded the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. Leonowens's experiences in Siam were fictionalised in Margaret Landon
Margaret Landon
Margaret Landon was an American writer best remembered for Anna and the King of Siam, her best-selling 1944 novel of the life of Anna Leonowens which eventually sold over a million copies and translated into more than twenty languages...
's 1944 bestselling novel Anna and the King of Siam
Anna and the King of Siam (book)
Anna and the King of Siam is a 1944 semi-fictionalized biographical novel by Margaret Landon.In the early 1860s, Anna Leonowens, a widow with two young children, was invited to Siam by King Mongkut , who wanted her to teach his children and wives the English language and introduce them to British...
and in various films and television miniseries based on the book, most notably Rodgers and Hammerstein
Rodgers and Hammerstein
Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II were a well-known American songwriting duo, usually referred to as Rodgers and Hammerstein. They created a string of popular Broadway musicals in the 1940s and 1950s during what is considered the golden age of the medium...
's 1951 hit musical The King and I
The King and I
The King and I is a stage musical, the fifth by the team of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II. The work is based on the 1944 novel Anna and the King of Siam by Margaret Landon and derives from the memoirs of Anna Leonowens, who became governess to the children of King Mongkut of Siam in...
.
Early life and family
Anna Leonowens was born Anna Harriette Edwards in AhmadnagarAhmadnagar
Ahmadnagar is located in Gujranwala DistricTt, Punjab, Pakistan.-References:...
, India on 5 November 1831. She was the second daughter of Sergeant
Sergeant
Sergeant is a rank used in some form by most militaries, police forces, and other uniformed organizations around the world. Its origins are the Latin serviens, "one who serves", through the French term Sergent....
Thomas Edwards of the Sappers and Miners
Royal Engineers
The Corps of Royal Engineers, usually just called the Royal Engineers , and commonly known as the Sappers, is one of the corps of the British Army....
, a former London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
cabinetmaker, and his Anglo-Indian
Anglo-Indian
Anglo-Indians are people who have mixed Indian and British ancestry, or people of British descent born or living in India, now mainly historical in the latter sense. British residents in India used the term "Eurasians" for people of mixed European and Indian descent...
wife, Mary Anne Glasscott, daughter of a lieutenant
Lieutenant
A lieutenant is a junior commissioned officer in many nations' armed forces. Typically, the rank of lieutenant in naval usage, while still a junior officer rank, is senior to the army rank...
in the Bombay Army
Bombay Army
The Bombay Army was the army of the Bombay Presidency, one of the three Presidencies of British India, in South Asia.The Presidency armies, like the presidencies themselves, belonged to the East India Company until the Government of India Act 1858 transferred all three presidencies to the direct...
. For most of her adult life, Leonowens was estranged from her family and took pains to disguise her modest origins by writing that she had been born a Crawford in Caernarfon
Caernarfon
Caernarfon is a Royal town, community and port in Gwynedd, Wales, with a population of 9,611. It lies along the A487 road, on the east banks of the Menai Straits, opposite the Isle of Anglesey. The city of Bangor is to the northeast, while Snowdonia fringes Caernarfon to the east and southeast...
and giving her father's rank
Military rank
Military rank is a system of hierarchical relationships in armed forces or civil institutions organized along military lines. Usually, uniforms denote the bearer's rank by particular insignia affixed to the uniforms...
as captain. By doing so, she protected not only herself but her children, who would have had greater opportunities if their mixed-race heritage remained unknown. Investigations uncovered no record of her birth at Caernarfon, news which came as a shock to the town that had long claimed her as one of its most famous natives.
Leonowens' father died before she was born
Posthumous birth
A posthumous birth is a birth of a child after the death of a parent. A person born in these circumstances is called a posthumous child or a posthumously born person...
, and her mother married an Irish
Irish people
The Irish people are an ethnic group who originate in Ireland, an island in northwestern Europe. Ireland has been populated for around 9,000 years , with the Irish people's earliest ancestors recorded having legends of being descended from groups such as the Nemedians, Fomorians, Fir Bolg, Tuatha...
soldier, Corporal Patrick Donohoe
Patrick Donohoe
Patrick Donohoe VC was an Irish recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest and most prestigious award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces.-Details:He was approximately 37 years old and a private in the 9th Lancers, British Army during the...
of the Engineers
Royal Engineers
The Corps of Royal Engineers, usually just called the Royal Engineers , and commonly known as the Sappers, is one of the corps of the British Army....
, who was later awarded the Victoria Cross
Victoria Cross
The Victoria Cross is the highest military decoration awarded for valour "in the face of the enemy" to members of the armed forces of various Commonwealth countries, and previous British Empire territories....
for bravery in Bombay during the Indian Mutiny. In 1845, her 15-year-old sister, Eliza Julia Edwards, married Edward John Pratt, a 38-year-old British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
civil servant who had served in the Indian Navy
Indian Navy
The Indian Navy is the naval branch of the armed forces of India. The President of India serves as the Commander-in-Chief of the Navy. The Chief of Naval Staff , usually a four-star officer in the rank of Admiral, commands the Navy...
. One of their grandsons was the actor William Henry Pratt, better known as Boris Karloff
Boris Karloff
William Henry Pratt , better known by his stage name Boris Karloff, was an English actor.Karloff is best remembered for his roles in horror films and his portrayal of Frankenstein's monster in Frankenstein , Bride of Frankenstein , and Son of Frankenstein...
. Because Edward John Pratt was also an Anglo-Indian, Leonowens never approved of her sister's marriage, and her disconnect from the family was so complete that decades later, when a Pratt relative contacted her, she replied threatening suicide if he persisted.
Leonowens' relationship with her stepfather Donohoe was not a happy one, and she later accused him of putting pressure on her, like her sister (with whom she also fell out), to marry a much older man. In 1847 the family went to Aden
Aden
Aden is a seaport city in Yemen, located by the eastern approach to the Red Sea , some 170 kilometres east of Bab-el-Mandeb. Its population is approximately 800,000. Aden's ancient, natural harbour lies in the crater of an extinct volcano which now forms a peninsula, joined to the mainland by a...
, to where Donohoe had been seconded as assistant supervisor of public works
Public works
Public works are a broad category of projects, financed and constructed by the government, for recreational, employment, and health and safety uses in the greater community...
. Here Leonowens was taught by the resident chaplain
Chaplain
Traditionally, a chaplain is a minister in a specialized setting such as a priest, pastor, rabbi, or imam or lay representative of a religion attached to a secular institution such as a hospital, prison, military unit, police department, university, or private chapel...
and orientalist
Oriental studies
Oriental studies is the academic field of study that embraces Near Eastern and Far Eastern societies and cultures, languages, peoples, history and archaeology; in recent years the subject has often been turned into the newer terms of Asian studies and Middle Eastern studies...
, the Revd. George Percy Badger
George Percy Badger
George Percy Badger was an English Anglican missionary, and a scholar of oriental studies. He is mainly known for his doctrinal and historical studies about the Church of the East.-Life:...
, and his wife Maria, a missionary
Mission (Christian)
Christian missionary activities often involve sending individuals and groups , to foreign countries and to places in their own homeland. This has frequently involved not only evangelization , but also humanitarian work, especially among the poor and disadvantaged...
schoolmistress. The Badgers recognised the girl's aptitude for languages and in 1849 they took her with them on a tour through Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
and Palestine
Palestine
Palestine is a conventional name, among others, used to describe the geographic region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, and various adjoining lands....
.
Marriage, Western Australia, and widowhood
At the end of 1849, Anna Edwards returned with her family to India, where in Poona she married her childhood sweetheart, Thomas Leon Owens or Leonowens (a civilianCivilian
A civilian under international humanitarian law is a person who is not a member of his or her country's armed forces or other militia. Civilians are distinct from combatants. They are afforded a degree of legal protection from the effects of war and military occupation...
clerk rather than the army officer of her romantic memoir), over the objections of her stepfather and mother. In 1852 the young couple, accompanied by Anna's uncle W.V. Glasscott, sailed to Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
via Singapore
Singapore
Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...
, where they boarded the barque Alibi. The journey from Singapore was long and Anna gave birth to a son, Thomas, on board. On 8 March 1853, nearing the Western Australian coast, the Alibi was almost wrecked on a reef. Ten days later Anna, Thomas, their new born son and Glasscott arrived in Perth
Perth, Western Australia
Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia and the fourth most populous city in Australia. The Perth metropolitan area has an estimated population of almost 1,700,000....
where Thomas quickly found employment as a clerk in the colonial administration.
In Perth
Perth, Western Australia
Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia and the fourth most populous city in Australia. The Perth metropolitan area has an estimated population of almost 1,700,000....
, Anna, at this time going by her middle name, Harriett, tried to start a school for young ladies. In March 1854 her son died, and later that year a daughter, Avis Annie was born. In 1855 the Leonowens family moved to Lynton
Lynton Convict Depot
Lynton Convict Depot , Western Australia, was established in 1853 to supply labour to the Geraldine Lead Mine, 40 miles north of the site in the Murchison River bed...
, a remote convict depot north of Geraldton where Thomas was appointed the Commissariat
Commissariat
A commissariat is the department of an army charged with the provision of supplies, both food and forage, for the troops. The supply of military stores such as ammunition is not included in the duties of a commissariat. In almost every army the duties of transport and supply are performed by the...
Storekeeper and Anna gave birth to their son Louis
Louis T. Leonowens
Louis Thomas Gunnis Leonowens was a Briton who served as an officer with the Siamese royal cavalry and founded the trading company that bears his name.-Early life:...
there. By early 1857 the Lynton Convict Depot
Lynton Convict Depot
Lynton Convict Depot , Western Australia, was established in 1853 to supply labour to the Geraldine Lead Mine, 40 miles north of the site in the Murchison River bed...
had closed and the Leonowens family were back in Perth, but in April 1857 sailed to Singapore
Singapore
Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...
. Later moving to Penang
Penang
Penang is a state in Malaysia and the name of its constituent island, located on the northwest coast of Peninsular Malaysia by the Strait of Malacca. It is bordered by Kedah in the north and east, and Perak in the south. Penang is the second smallest Malaysian state in area after Perlis, and the...
, Thomas found work as a hotel
Hotel
A hotel is an establishment that provides paid lodging on a short-term basis. The provision of basic accommodation, in times past, consisting only of a room with a bed, a cupboard, a small table and a washstand has largely been replaced by rooms with modern facilities, including en-suite bathrooms...
keeper
Keeper
-People:* Cyril Keeper , Canadian politician* Joe Keeper , Canadian long distance runner and Olympian* The Keeper of the Register, Keeper of the National Register of Historic Places* Gamekeeper* Lighthouse keeper* Museum curator...
, only to die of apoplexy
Apoplexy
Apoplexy is a medical term, which can be used to describe 'bleeding' in a stroke . Without further specification, it is rather outdated in use. Today it is used only for specific conditions, such as pituitary apoplexy and ovarian apoplexy. In common speech, it is used non-medically to mean a state...
, leaving Anna Leonowens an impoverished widow. Thomas Leonowens was buried on 7 May 1859 in the Protestant Cemetery in Penang. Of their four children, the two eldest had died in infancy. To support her surviving daughter Avis and son Louis
Louis T. Leonowens
Louis Thomas Gunnis Leonowens was a Briton who served as an officer with the Siamese royal cavalry and founded the trading company that bears his name.-Early life:...
, Leonowens again took up teaching, and opened a school for the children of British officers in Singapore
Singapore
Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...
. While the enterprise was not a financial success, it established her reputation as an educator.
Royal governess
In 1862, Leonowens accepted an offer made by the SiameseThailand
Thailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the...
consul
Consul
Consul was the highest elected office of the Roman Republic and an appointive office under the Empire. The title was also used in other city states and also revived in modern states, notably in the First French Republic...
in Singapore, Tan Kim Ching
Tan Kim Ching
Singapore-born Tan Kim Ching who lived from 1829 to Feb 1892 was the eldest of the three sons of Tan Tock Seng, the founder and financier of Tan Tock Seng Hospital. He was consul for Japan, Thailand and Russia, was a member of the Royal Court of Siam. He was one of Singapore’s leading Chinese...
, to teach the wives and children of Mongkut
Mongkut
Phra Bat Somdet Phra Poramenthramaha Mongkut Phra Chom Klao Chao Yu Hua , or Rama IV, known in foreign countries as King Mongkut , was the fourth monarch of Siam under the House of Chakri, ruling from 1851-1868...
, King
King
- Centers of population :* King, Ontario, CanadaIn USA:* King, Indiana* King, North Carolina* King, Lincoln County, Wisconsin* King, Waupaca County, Wisconsin* King County, Washington- Moving-image works :Television:...
of Siam
Thailand
Thailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the...
. The king wished to give his 39 wives and concubines and 82 children a modern Western education
Liberal education
A Liberal education is a system or course of education suitable for the cultivation of a free human being. It is based on the medieval concept of the liberal arts or, more commonly now, the liberalism of the Age of Enlightenment...
on scientific
Science education
Science education is the field concerned with sharing science content and process with individuals not traditionally considered part of the scientific community. The target individuals may be children, college students, or adults within the general public. The field of science education comprises...
secular
Secular education
Secular education is the system of public education in countries with a secular government or separation between religion and state.An example of a highly secular educational system would be the French public educational system, going as far as to ban conspicuous religious symbols in schools.In...
lines, which earlier missionaries'
Mission (Christian)
Christian missionary activities often involve sending individuals and groups , to foreign countries and to places in their own homeland. This has frequently involved not only evangelization , but also humanitarian work, especially among the poor and disadvantaged...
wives had not provided. Leonowens sent her daughter Avis to school in England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, and took her son Louis
Louis T. Leonowens
Louis Thomas Gunnis Leonowens was a Briton who served as an officer with the Siamese royal cavalry and founded the trading company that bears his name.-Early life:...
with her to Bangkok
Bangkok
Bangkok is the capital and largest urban area city in Thailand. It is known in Thai as Krung Thep Maha Nakhon or simply Krung Thep , meaning "city of angels." The full name of Bangkok is Krung Thep Mahanakhon Amon Rattanakosin Mahintharayutthaya Mahadilok Phop Noppharat Ratchathani Burirom...
. She succeeded Dan Beach Bradley
Dan Beach Bradley
Dan Beach Bradley M.D. was an American Protestant missionary to Siam from 1835 until his death. He is credited with numerous firsts, including bringing the first Thai-script printing press to Siam, publishing the first Thai newspaper and monolingual Thai dictionary, and introducing Western...
, an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
missionary, as teacher to the Siamese court
Noble court
The court of a monarch, or at some periods an important nobleman, is a term for the extended household and all those who regularly attended on the ruler or central figure...
.
Leonowens served at court until 1867, a period of nearly six years, first as a teacher and later as language secretary for the king. Although her position carried great respect and even a degree of political influence, she did not find the terms and conditions of her employment to her satisfaction, and came to be regarded by the king himself as a 'difficult woman and more difficult than generality'.
In 1868, Leonowens was on leave for her health in England and had been negotiating a return to the court on better terms when Mongkut fell ill and died. The king mentioned Leonowens and her son in his will
Will (law)
A will or testament is a legal declaration by which a person, the testator, names one or more persons to manage his/her estate and provides for the transfer of his/her property at death...
, though they did not receive the legacy. The new monarch, fifteen-year-old Chulalongkorn
Chulalongkorn
Phra Bat Somdet Phra Poramintharamaha Chulalongkorn Phra Chunla Chom Klao Chao Yu Hua , or Rama V was the fifth monarch of Siam under the House of Chakri. He was known to the Siamese of his time as Phra Phuttha Chao Luang . He is considered one of the greatest kings of Siam...
, who succeeded his father, wrote Leonowens a warm letter of thanks for her services. He did not invite her to resume her post but they corresponded amicably for many years. Of note is that, at the age of 27, Louis Leonowens returned to Siam and was granted a commission of Captain in the Royal Cavalry. Chulalongkorn made reforms for which his former tutor claimed some of the credit, including the abolition of the practice of prostration
Prostration
Prostration is the placement of the body in a reverentially or submissively prone position. Major world religions employ prostration either as a means of embodying reverence for a noble person, persons or doctrine, or as an act of submissiveness to a supreme being or beings...
before the royal person. However, many of those same reforms were goals established by his father.
Literary career
By 1869, Leonowens was in New YorkNew York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
, where she opened a school for girls for a brief period on Staten Island, and began contributing travel articles to a Boston
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
journal, Atlantic Monthly, including 'The Favorite of the Harem', reviewed by the New York Times as 'an Eastern love story, having apparently a strong basis of truth'. She expanded her articles into two volumes of memoirs, beginning with The English Governess at the Siamese Court (1870), which earned her immediate fame but also brought charges of sensationalism. In her writing, she casts a critical eye over court life; the account is not always a flattering one, and has become the subject of controversy in Thailand
Thailand
Thailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the...
; she has also been accused of exaggerating her influence with the king.
Leonowens was a feminist
First-wave feminism
First-wave feminism refers to a period of feminist activity during the 19th and early twentieth century in the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States. It focused on de jure inequalities, primarily on gaining women's suffrage .The term first-wave was coined retroactively in the 1970s...
and in her writings she tended to focus on what she saw as the subjugated status of Siamese women, including those sequestered within the Nang Harm, or royal harem
Harem
Harem refers to the sphere of women in what is usually a polygynous household and their enclosed quarters which are forbidden to men...
. She emphasised that although Mongkut had been a forward-looking ruler, he had desired to preserve customs such as prostration and sexual slavery
Sexual slavery
Sexual slavery is when unwilling people are coerced into slavery for sexual exploitation. The incidence of sexual slavery by country has been studied and tabulated by UNESCO, with the cooperation of various international agencies...
which seemed unenlightened and degrading. The sequel, Romance of the Harem (1873), incorporates tales based on palace gossip, including the king's alleged torture and execution of one of his concubines, Tuptim; the story lacks independent corroboration and is dismissed as out of character for the king by some critics. A great granddaughter, Princess Vudhichalerm Vudhijaya (b. 21 May 1934), stated in a 2001 interview: 'King Mongkut was in the monk's
Bhikkhu
A Bhikkhu or Bhikṣu is an ordained male Buddhist monastic. A female monastic is called a Bhikkhuni Nepali: ). The life of Bhikkhus and Bhikkhunis is governed by a set of rules called the patimokkha within the vinaya's framework of monastic discipline...
hood for 27 years before he was king. He would never have ordered an execution. It is not the Buddhist
Buddhism
Buddhism is a religion and philosophy encompassing a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha . The Buddha lived and taught in the northeastern Indian subcontinent some time between the 6th and 4th...
way.' She added that the same Tuptim was her grandmother and had married Chulalongkorn. (He had 36 wives.)
While in the United States Leonowens also earned much-needed money through popular lecture tours. At venues such as the house of Mrs. Sylvanus Reed in Fifty-third Street, New York City, in the regular members' course at Association Hall, or under the auspices of bodies such as the Long Island Historical Society
Brooklyn Historical Society
Founded in 1863, the Brooklyn Historical Society is a museum, library, and educational center preserving and encouraging the study of Brooklyn's rich 400-year past. The Brooklyn Historical Society houses materials relating to the history of Brooklyn and its people. These holdings supply...
, she lectured on subjects including 'Christian Missions to Pagan Lands' and 'The Empire of Siam, and the City of the Veiled Women'. The New York Times reported: 'Mrs. Leonowens' purpose is to awaken an interest, and enlist sympathies, in behalf of missionary labors, particularly in their relation to the destiny of Asiatic women.' She joined the literary circles of New York and Boston and made the acquaintance of local lights on the lecture circuit, such as Oliver Wendell Holmes
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. was an American physician, professor, lecturer, and author. Regarded by his peers as one of the best writers of the 19th century, he is considered a member of the Fireside Poets. His most famous prose works are the "Breakfast-Table" series, which began with The Autocrat...
, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was an American poet and educator whose works include "Paul Revere's Ride", The Song of Hiawatha, and Evangeline...
and Harriet Beecher Stowe
Harriet Beecher Stowe
Harriet Beecher Stowe was an American abolitionist and author. Her novel Uncle Tom's Cabin was a depiction of life for African-Americans under slavery; it reached millions as a novel and play, and became influential in the United States and United Kingdom...
, author of Uncle Tom's Cabin
Uncle Tom's Cabin
Uncle Tom's Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly is an anti-slavery novel by American author Harriet Beecher Stowe. Published in 1852, the novel "helped lay the groundwork for the Civil War", according to Will Kaufman....
, a book whose anti-slavery
Abolitionism
Abolitionism is a movement to end slavery.In western Europe and the Americas abolitionism was a movement to end the slave trade and set slaves free. At the behest of Dominican priest Bartolomé de las Casas who was shocked at the treatment of natives in the New World, Spain enacted the first...
message Leonowens had brought to the attention of the royal household. She said the book influenced Chulalongkorn's reform of slavery in Siam, a process he had begun in 1868, and which would end with its total abolition in 1915.
Later years
Leonowens resumed her teaching career and taught daily from 9 AM to 12 noon for an autumn half at the Berkeley School of New York at 252 Madison AvenueMadison Avenue (Manhattan)
Madison Avenue is a north-south avenue in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, United States, that carries northbound one-way traffic. It runs from Madison Square to the Madison Avenue Bridge at 138th Street. In doing so, it passes through Midtown, the Upper East Side , Spanish Harlem, and...
, Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
, beginning on October 5, 1880; this was a new preparatory school
University-preparatory school
A university-preparatory school or college-preparatory school is a secondary school, usually private, designed to prepare students for a college or university education...
for colleges and schools of science and her presence was advertised in the press.
Leonowens visited Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
in 1881 and other Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
an countries, and continued to publish travel articles and books. She settled in Halifax
City of Halifax
Halifax is a city in Canada, which was the capital of the province of Nova Scotia and shire town of Halifax County. It was the largest city in Atlantic Canada until it was amalgamated into Halifax Regional Municipality in 1996...
, Nova Scotia
Nova Scotia
Nova Scotia is one of Canada's three Maritime provinces and is the most populous province in Atlantic Canada. The name of the province is Latin for "New Scotland," but "Nova Scotia" is the recognized, English-language name of the province. The provincial capital is Halifax. Nova Scotia is the...
, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, where she again became involved in women's education, and was a suffragette
Suffragette
"Suffragette" is a term coined by the Daily Mail newspaper as a derogatory label for members of the late 19th and early 20th century movement for women's suffrage in the United Kingdom, in particular members of the Women's Social and Political Union...
and one of the founders of the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. After nineteen years, she moved to Montreal
Montreal
Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...
, Quebec
Quebec
Quebec or is a province in east-central Canada. It is the only Canadian province with a predominantly French-speaking population and the only one whose sole official language is French at the provincial level....
.
Leonowens's daughter, Avis, married Thomas Fyshe, a Scottish
Scottish people
The Scottish people , or Scots, are a nation and ethnic group native to Scotland. Historically they emerged from an amalgamation of the Picts and Gaels, incorporating neighbouring Britons to the south as well as invading Germanic peoples such as the Anglo-Saxons and the Norse.In modern use,...
bank
Bank
A bank is a financial institution that serves as a financial intermediary. The term "bank" may refer to one of several related types of entities:...
er who ended the family's money worries, while her son, Louis
Louis T. Leonowens
Louis Thomas Gunnis Leonowens was a Briton who served as an officer with the Siamese royal cavalry and founded the trading company that bears his name.-Early life:...
, returned to Siam
Thailand
Thailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the...
and became an officer in the Siamese royal cavalry
Cavalry
Cavalry or horsemen were soldiers or warriors who fought mounted on horseback. Cavalry were historically the third oldest and the most mobile of the combat arms...
. He married Caroline Knox, a daughter of Sir Thomas George Knox, the British consul-general in Bangkok
Bangkok
Bangkok is the capital and largest urban area city in Thailand. It is known in Thai as Krung Thep Maha Nakhon or simply Krung Thep , meaning "city of angels." The full name of Bangkok is Krung Thep Mahanakhon Amon Rattanakosin Mahintharayutthaya Mahadilok Phop Noppharat Ratchathani Burirom...
(1824–1887), and his Thai wife, Prang Yen. Under Chulalongkorn's patronage, Louis Leonowens founded the successful trading company that still bears his name. The Louis T. Leonowens Co.Ltd. is still running business in Thailand up until present time.
Anna Leonowens met Chulalongkorn again when he visited London in 1897, thirty years after she had left Siam, and the king took the opportunity to express his thanks in person.
Anna Leonowens died on January 19, 1915, at 83 years of age. She was interred in Mount Royal Cemetery
Mount Royal Cemetery
Opened in 1852, Mount Royal Cemetery is a 165-acre terraced cemetery on the north slope of Mount Royal in the borough of Outremont, Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The burial ground shares the mountain with the much larger adjacent Roman Catholic cemetery -- Cimetière Notre-Dame-des-Neiges...
in Montreal
Montreal
Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...
.
Anna Leonowens in fiction and film
Margaret LandonMargaret Landon
Margaret Landon was an American writer best remembered for Anna and the King of Siam, her best-selling 1944 novel of the life of Anna Leonowens which eventually sold over a million copies and translated into more than twenty languages...
's novel Anna and the King of Siam
Anna and the King of Siam (book)
Anna and the King of Siam is a 1944 semi-fictionalized biographical novel by Margaret Landon.In the early 1860s, Anna Leonowens, a widow with two young children, was invited to Siam by King Mongkut , who wanted her to teach his children and wives the English language and introduce them to British...
(1944) provides a fictionalised look at Anna Leonowens's years at the royal court, developing the abolitionist
Abolitionism
Abolitionism is a movement to end slavery.In western Europe and the Americas abolitionism was a movement to end the slave trade and set slaves free. At the behest of Dominican priest Bartolomé de las Casas who was shocked at the treatment of natives in the New World, Spain enacted the first...
theme that resonated with her American readership. In 1946, Talbot Jennings and Sally Benson adapted it into the screenplay
Screenplay
A screenplay or script is a written work that is made especially for a film or television program. Screenplays can be original works or adaptations from existing pieces of writing. In them, the movement, actions, expression, and dialogues of the characters are also narrated...
for a dramatic film of the same name, starring Irene Dunne
Irene Dunne
Irene Dunne was an American film actress and singer of the 1930s, 1940s and early 1950s. Dunne was nominated five times for the Academy Award for Best Actress, for her performances in Cimarron , Theodora Goes Wild , The Awful Truth , Love Affair and I Remember Mama...
and Rex Harrison
Rex Harrison
Sir Reginald Carey “Rex” Harrison was an English actor of stage and screen. Harrison won an Academy Award and two Tony Awards.-Youth and stage career:...
. In response, Thai authors Seni
Seni Pramoj
Mom Rajawongse Seni Pramoj was three times the prime minister of Thailand and a politician in the Democrat Party. A member of the Thai royal family, he was a descendant of King Rama II.-Biography:...
and Kukrit Pramoj
Kukrit Pramoj
Mom Rajawongse Kukrit Pramoj was a Thai politician and scholar. He was Speaker of the House of Representatives of Thailand 1973-1974 and was the thirteenth Prime Minister of Thailand, serving in office from 1975-1976.- Early years:Of royal descent, M.R...
wrote their own account in 1948 and sent it to American politician and diplomat Abbot Low Moffat (1901–1996), who drew on it for his biography Mongkut, the King of Siam (1961). Moffat donated the Pramoj brothers' manuscript to the Library of Congress
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...
in 1961.
Landon had, however, created the iconic image of Leonowens, and 'in the mid-20th century she came to personify the eccentric Victorian
Victorian era
The Victorian era of British history was the period of Queen Victoria's reign from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. It was a long period of peace, prosperity, refined sensibilities and national self-confidence...
female traveler'. The novel was adapted as a hit musical comedy by Rodgers and Hammerstein
Rodgers and Hammerstein
Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II were a well-known American songwriting duo, usually referred to as Rodgers and Hammerstein. They created a string of popular Broadway musicals in the 1940s and 1950s during what is considered the golden age of the medium...
, The King and I
The King and I
The King and I is a stage musical, the fifth by the team of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II. The work is based on the 1944 novel Anna and the King of Siam by Margaret Landon and derives from the memoirs of Anna Leonowens, who became governess to the children of King Mongkut of Siam in...
(1951), starring Gertrude Lawrence
Gertrude Lawrence
Gertrude Lawrence was an English actress, singer and musical comedy performer known for her stage appearances in the West End theatre district of London and on Broadway.-Early life:...
and Yul Brynner
Yul Brynner
Yul Brynner was a Russian-born actor of stage and film. He was best known for his portrayal of Mongkut, king of Siam, in the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical The King and I, for which he won an Academy Award for Best Actor for the film version; he also played the role more than 4,500 times on...
, which ran 1,246 performances on Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
. In 1956, a film version was released, with Deborah Kerr
Deborah Kerr
Deborah Kerr, CBE was a Scottish film and television actress from Glasgow. She won the Sarah Siddons Award for her Chicago performance as Laura Reynolds in Tea and Sympathy, a role which she originated on Broadway, a Golden Globe Award for the motion picture The King and I, and was a three-time...
starring in the role of Leonowens and Brynner reprising his role as the king. Revived many times on stage (with Brynner starring in a number of revivals), the musical has remained a favourite of the theatre-going public. However the humorous depiction of Mongkut as a polka
Polka
The polka is a Central European dance and also a genre of dance music familiar throughout Europe and the Americas. It originated in the middle of the 19th century in Bohemia...
-dancing despot
Despot
Despot may refer to:* Despot , a Byzantine court title* Despotism, a form of government in which power is concentrated in the hands of an individual or a small groupPeople with the surname Despot:...
, as well as the king's and Anna's apparent romantic feeling for each other, is condemned as disrespectful in Bangkok, where the Rodgers and Hammerstein film was banned by the Thai Government. The 1946 film version of Anna and the King of Siam starring Rex Harrison as Mongkut was allowed to be shown in Thailand, although it was banned in newly independent India as an inaccurate insult by westerners to an Eastern king. (In 1950, the Thai Government did not permit the film to be shown for the second time in Thailand.) The books Romance in the Harem and An English Governess at the Siamese Court were not banned in Thailand either. There were even Thai translation of these books by respected Thai writer "Humorist" (Ob Chaivasu).
During a visit to the USA in 1960, the present monarch of Thailand, Bhumibol
Bhumibol Adulyadej
Bhumibol Adulyadej is the current King of Thailand. He is known as Rama IX...
, a great-grandson of Mongkut, and his entourage explained that from what they could gather from the reviews of the musical, the characterisation of Mongkut seemed "90 percent exaggerated. My great-grandfather was really quite a mild and nice man." Years later however, during her 1985 visit to New York, Queen Sirikit of Thailand went to see the Broadway musical at the invitation of Yul Brynner. The then Ambassador of Thailand to the US gave another reason for Thailand's disapproval of The King and I: its ethno-centric attitude and its barely hidden insult on the whole Siamese nation as childish and inferior to the Westerners.
In 1972, Twentieth Century Fox produced a non-musical American TV series for CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
, Anna and the King
Anna and the King (TV series)
Anna and the King is a short-lived sitcom broadcast in the United States by CBS as part of its 1972 fall lineup.-Overview:Anna and the King is a non-musical adaptation of the 1956 film of Rodgers and Hammerstein's The King and I, which was in turn based on the novel Anna and the King of Siam by...
, with Samantha Eggar
Samantha Eggar
Samantha Eggar is an English film, television and voice actress.-Early life:She was born Victoria Louise Samantha Marie Elizabeth Therese Eggar in Hampstead, London to an Anglo-Irish father and a mother of Dutch and Portuguese descent...
taking the part of Leonowens and Brynner reprising his role as the king. Margaret Landon charged the makers with 'inaccurate and mutilated portrayals' of her literary property and sued unsuccessfully for copyright infringement. The series was not a success and was canceled after only 13 episodes. In 1999 an animated version
The King and I (1999 film)
The King and I is a 1999 animated film adaptation of the stage musical The King and I, which in turn is adapted from the Anna Leonowens story. The film was produced by Warner Bros. Animation and Morgan Creek Productions, and released theatrically by Warner Bros. Family Entertainment on March 19, 1999...
of the musical was released by Warner Bros. Animation
Warner Bros. Animation
Warner Bros. Animation is the animation division of Warner Bros., a subsidiary of Time Warner. The studio is closely associated with the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies characters, among others. The studio is the successor to Warner Bros...
. In the same year, Jodie Foster
Jodie Foster
Alicia Christian "Jodie" Foster is an American actress, film director, producer as well as a former child actress....
and Chow Yun-fat
Chow Yun-Fat
Chow Yun-fat, SBS is an actor from Hong Kong. He is best known in Asia for his collaboration with filmmaker John Woo in heroic bloodshed genre films A Better Tomorrow, The Killer, and Hard Boiled; and to the West for his role as Li Mu-bai in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon...
starred in a new feature-length cinematic remake, also entitled Anna and the King
Anna and the King
Anna and the King is a 1999 biographical drama film loosely based on Anna and the King of Siam, the story of Anna Leonowens, who was an English schoolteacher in Siam, now Thailand, in the 19th century...
. One Thai critic complained that the film-makers had made Mongkut 'appear like a cowboy'; this version was also banned by censors in Thailand.
Leonowens appears as a character in Paul Marlowe
Paul Marlowe
Paul Marlowe is a Canadian author of historical fiction and science fiction. Much of his historical fiction is connected in some way with the Etheric Explorers Club, a Victorian society devoted to investigating unusual or supernatural phenomena.-Radio Plays:...
's novel Knights of the Sea, in which she travels from Halifax to Baddeck in 1887 to take part in a campaign to promote women's suffrage during a by-election
By-election
A by-election is an election held to fill a political office that has become vacant between regularly scheduled elections....
.
See also
- Reginald JohnstonReginald JohnstonSir Reginald Fleming Johnston, KCMG, CBE, was a Scottish academic, diplomat and tutor to Puyi, the last emperor of China, and later appointed as the last Commissioner of Weihaiwei.-Early:...
— the English tutor to Aisin-Gioro Puyi the last emperor of ChinaEmperor of ChinaThe Emperor of China refers to any sovereign of Imperial China reigning between the founding of Qin Dynasty of China, united by the King of Qin in 221 BCE, and the fall of Yuan Shikai's Empire of China in 1916. When referred to as the Son of Heaven , a title that predates the Qin unification, the...
. His story was also dramatised in films such as The Last EmperorThe Last EmperorThe Last Emperor is a 1987 biopic about the life of Puyi, the last Emperor of China, whose autobiography was the basis for the screenplay written by Mark Peploe and Bernardo Bertolucci. Independently produced by Jeremy Thomas, it was directed by Bertolucci and released in 1987 by Columbia Pictures...
. - Joseph Caulfield JamesJoseph Caulfield JamesJoseph Caulfield James was an English teacher from Birkenhead, England. He was the principal tutor to Prince Vajiravudh of Siam, who later became king of Siam.-Royal Tutor:...
— the English tutor to King Vajiravudh of SiamVajiravudhPhra Bat Somdet Phra Poramentharamaha Vajiravudh Phra Mongkut Klao Chao Yu Hua , or Phra Bat Somdet Phra Ramathibodi Si Sintharamaha Vajiravudh Phra Mongkut Klao Chao Yu Hua , or Rama VI was the sixth monarch of Siam under the House of Chakri, ruling from 1910 until his death...
. - Katherine CarlKatherine CarlKatharine Augusta Carl was an American painter and author who spent nine months in China in 1903 painting a portrait of the Empress Dowager Cixi for the St. Louis Exposition....
— an American painter and author at the court of the Empress Dowager CixiEmpress Dowager CixiEmpress Dowager Cixi1 , of the Manchu Yehenara clan, was a powerful and charismatic figure who became the de facto ruler of the Manchu Qing Dynasty in China for 47 years from 1861 to her death in 1908....
of ChinaChinaChinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
.
External links
} Being Recollections of Six Years in the Royal Palace at Bangkok, by Anna Leonowens, from Project Gutenberg
Project Gutenberg
Project Gutenberg is a volunteer effort to digitize and archive cultural works, to "encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks". Founded in 1971 by Michael S. Hart, it is the oldest digital library. Most of the items in its collection are the full texts of public domain books...
.
}, from Google Books (PDF available).
- Louis T. Leonowens (Thailand) Ltd., the company founded by Leonowens's son.
- (Thai) "Anna Leonowens: Who says she's a compulsive liar?" Art and Culture Magazine
- (Thai) "Letter from 'King Mongkut' to 'Anna' from To to Dear and the case of 'Son Glin'. Art and Culture Magazine
- (Thai) "King Mongkut set up 'secret mission' disguising Sir John and Anna, hid Laos in Khmer" Art and Culture Magazine
- (Thai) "King Mongkut’s letters to Anna: When Madame Teacher plays political negotiator" Art and Culture Magazine