Bombay Anna: The Real Story and Remarkable Adventures of the King and I Governess - Hardcover

Morgan, Susan

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0520252268 ISBN 13: 9780520252264

Publisher: University of California Press, 2008

Synopsis

If you thought you knew the story of Anna in The King and I, think again. As this riveting biography shows, the real life of Anna Leonowens was far more fascinating than the beloved story of the Victorian governess who went to work for the King of Siam. To write this definitive account, Susan Morgan traveled around the globe and discovered new information that has eluded researchers for years. Anna was born a poor, mixed-race army brat in India, and what followed is an extraordinary nineteenth-century story of savvy self-invention, wild adventure, and far-reaching influence. At a time when most women stayed at home, Anna Leonowens traveled all over the world, witnessed some of the most fascinating events of the Age of Empire, and became a well-known travel writer, journalist, teacher, and lecturer. She remains the one and only foreigner to have spent significant time inside the royal harem of Siam. She emigrated to the United States, crossed all of Russia on her own just before the revolution, and moved to Canada, where she publicly defended the rights of women and the working class. The book also gives an engrossing account of how and why Anna became an icon of American culture in The King and I and its many adaptations.

About this title

About the Author

Susan Morgan, Distinguished Professor of English at Miami University, is the author of Place Matters: Gendered Geography in Victorian Women's Travel Writings about Southeast Asia, among other books.

From the Back Cover

"Anna Leonowens has been a historical puzzle. Susan Morgan establishes a solid ground for our understanding of this intriguing writer who became famous in our time thanks to a Broadway musical. Her life and contributions as a writer, a humanist, and a 19th century feminist were far richer beyond being the 'I' with the King."—Thongchai Winichakul, author of Siam Mapped: A History of the Geo-Body of a Nation

"With extraordinary detective work, Susan Morgan uncovers the real tale of a brilliant and dynamic traveler who cut ties to her past history and fabricated the story of her life that has found its way into legend. In lovely and graceful prose, she uses this story to help us understand patterns of national and international life."—Allan M. Winkler, author of Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Making of Modern America

"With sensitive writing and meticulous research, Bombay Anna offers the first comprehensive biography of Anna Leonowens, the 'I' in The King and I, which gave my father, Yul Brynner, his signature role. The details of her self-invention are only part of the revelation Susan Morgan provides; she also paints a masterful portrait of the Britain's Raj and its colonial hegemony in Southeast Asia. It is a fascinating read." —Prof. Rock Brynner, author of Yul: The Man Who Would Be King

From the Inside Flap

"Anna Leonowens has been a historical puzzle. Susan Morgan establishes a solid ground for our understanding of this intriguing writer who became famous in our time thanks to a Broadway musical. Her life and contributions as a writer, a humanist, and a 19th century feminist were far richer beyond being the 'I' with the King."—Thongchai Winichakul, author of Siam Mapped: A History of the Geo-Body of a Nation

"With extraordinary detective work, Susan Morgan uncovers the real tale of a brilliant and dynamic traveler who cut ties to her past history and fabricated the story of her life that has found its way into legend. In lovely and graceful prose, she uses this story to help us understand patterns of national and international life."—Allan M. Winkler, author of Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Making of Modern America

"With sensitive writing and meticulous research, Bombay Anna offers the first comprehensive biography of Anna Leonowens, the 'I' in The King and I, which gave my father, Yul Brynner, his signature role. The details of her self-invention are only part of the revelation Susan Morgan provides; she also paints a masterful portrait of the Britain's Raj and its colonial hegemony in Southeast Asia. It is a fascinating read." —Prof. Rock Brynner, author of Yul: The Man Who Would Be King

Reviews

According to Morgan, the inspiration for the governess to the royal Siamese children in the 1950s musical The King and I, Anna Leonowens (1831–1915) was not the genteel British lady she purported to be, but a low-born, Anglo-Indian army brat who had severed ties with her family in India. A young widow living in Singapore, Leonowens was hired by King Mongkut to teach his wives and 82 children English. An absolute monarch committed to improving his people's lives and avoiding foreign control of his country, Mongkut had no romantic interest in Leonowens but shared her deep love of learning, occasionally consulted her on state issues and considered her arguments about the treatment of his enslaved harem. After Siam, the irrepressible Leonowens again reinvented herself as an eminent author and public lecturer in the U.S. and Canada, a social reformer and suffragist in Canada, a journalist in Russia and a Sanskrit scholar in Germany. Miami University English professor Morgan (Place Matters) uncovers and competently demonstrates the achievements of an extraordinary Victorian woman, but her biography is undermined by repetitious and charmless prose, underdeveloped analyses of Western/Thai political relationships and unfocused ramblings about the nature of biography. 15 b&w photos. (Apr.)
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Edition details

• Publisher: University of California Press
• Publication date: 2008
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0520252268
• ISBN 13: 9780520252264
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 300