Anna Leonowens

-
Perhaps the most famous governess of all time, AL is better known as Anna of The King and I than for her literary achievements. She was an enterprising and independent world traveller—arguably a Victorian example of a hybrid colonial subjectivity—whose fictionalised memoirs and stories based on her time in Siam received substantial attention in her lifetime. Admired in their time for their anti-slavery rhetoric, they have recently drawn attention to the complex relationship between European women and empire. A public speaker, AL also produced other travel writing, journalism, and art criticism.
  • BirthName: Ann Harriett
    Dow gives Harriet.
    Emma Edwards
    Dow, Leslie Smith. Anna Leonowens: A Life Beyond The King and I. Pottersfield, 1991.
    2

  • Self-constructed: Anna Leonowens
  • Married: Owens
  • Indexed: Anna Harriette Leonowens
    British Library Catalogue. http://explore.bl.uk/primo_library/libweb/action/search.do?dscnt=0&tab=local_tab&dstmp=1489778087340&vid=BLVU1&mode=Basic&fromLo.

Milestones

6 November 1831

Anna Harriett Emma Edwards (later AL ), educator and writer, was born in the East India Company barracks at Ahmednagar in India.
AL lied about her age, making herself three years younger.
Bristowe, William Syer. Louis and The King of Siam. Chatto and Windus, 1976.
26
Dow, Leslie Smith. Anna Leonowens: A Life Beyond The King and I. Pottersfield, 1991.
136
Dow, Leslie Smith. Anna Leonowens: A Life Beyond The King and I. Pottersfield, 1991.
1
Bristowe, William Syer. Louis and The King of Siam. Chatto and Windus, 1976.
26

April-August 1870

Part of AL 's first book, a memoir of her sojourn in Siam, The English Governess at the Siamese Court, was serialized in Atlantic Monthly.
Khorana, Meena, and Judith Gero John, editors. Dictionary of Literary Biography 163. Gale Research, 1996.
166: 221
Dow, Leslie Smith. Anna Leonowens: A Life Beyond The King and I. Pottersfield, 1991.
viii, 67

1889

AL published her fourth and final book: Our Asiatic Cousins.
Dow, Leslie Smith. Anna Leonowens: A Life Beyond The King and I. Pottersfield, 1991.
viii

19 January 1915

AL , educator and writer, died at 70 McTavish Street in Montreal, following another stroke.
Dow, Leslie Smith. Anna Leonowens: A Life Beyond The King and I. Pottersfield, 1991.
viii, 138

Biography

Birth and Family

6 November 1831

Anna Harriett Emma Edwards (later AL ), educator and writer, was born in the East India Company barracks at Ahmednagar in India.
AL lied about her age, making herself three years younger.
Bristowe, William Syer. Louis and The King of Siam. Chatto and Windus, 1976.
26
Dow, Leslie Smith. Anna Leonowens: A Life Beyond The King and I. Pottersfield, 1991.
136
Dow, Leslie Smith. Anna Leonowens: A Life Beyond The King and I. Pottersfield, 1991.
1
Bristowe, William Syer. Louis and The King of Siam. Chatto and Windus, 1976.
26