If you've seen the movie "Anna and the King" starring Jodie Foster, you're probably wondering about the real Anna. Who was she, and how did her story become so famous? Read on to find out.
"The King" was the king of Siam, known today as Thailand. King Mongkut - also called King Rama IV - was born in 1804. His father, Rama II, had 73 children in all, but Mongkut was the crown prince, in line to inherit the throne. When Rama II died, however, the royal council of Siam decided that one of Mongkut's older brothers would make a better king. Prince Mongkut became a simple monk, traveling through Siam on foot and eating just once a day. After 27 years, Rama III died and Mongkut was called back to court to be crowned as the new king.
King Mongkut was very intelligent and highly educated. He understood at least six languages and was a self-taught expert in astronomy and other sciences. "He was more systematically educated, and a more capacious devourer of books and news, than perhaps any man of equal rank in our day," Anna Leonowens wrote.
And who was Anna? As the movie suggests, she was a teacher who came to Siam during Mongkut's reign to give English lessons to his wives and children. The former monk had many of both - 39 wives and 82 children, living in a harem city of some 9,000 women who were kept almost completely apart from other men and the outside world. Mrs. Leonowens, a widow, set up a school in the palace and set to work. She spent several years in Siam, and later recalled her experiences in articles for The Atlantic Monthly magazine and two books, "An English Governess in the Siamese Court" and "The Romance of the Harem."
Leonowens was away from Siam when Mongkut died suddenly of malaria. One of her former students, Mongkut's son Chulalongkorn, assumed the throne. Anna was not invited back to Siam, so she became an author, writing the books that made her famous during her lifetime.
Still, the story of Anna and the king would probably have been forgotten if not for a novelist named Margaret Landon. Leonowens's books had been out of print for over fifty years when Landon tracked them down. Delighted by Leonowens's exotic account of life in the Siamese court, she urged others to read them, but many of her friends found the Victorian language too flowery. Finally one friend suggested that she rewrite Leonowens's story as a novel for modern readers. Landon accepted the challenge, and "Anna and the King of Siam" was born.
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