The World of the Play Discovering The King and I Rodgers and Hammerstein were not the first to tell Anna and King Mongkut’s story. The history of the production reaches back to 1862, when King Mongkut of Siam began searching for a suitable tutor for his royal family. Anna Leonowens published memoirs about her five years at the Grand Palace, and English and American readers were enchanted by the people and world of Siam. Although her books inspired numerous retellings, modern historians have identified major inaccuracies in her accounts. Many portions of the books are complete fabrications, making it difficult to uncover the “true story” of Anna and the king. Anna’s two works were subsequently adapted into Margaret Landon’s 1941 bestselling book, Anna and the King of Siam. Landon, a Christian missionary, imparted a distinctly Westernized perspective onto the story. As she stated in the introduction to the book: “If I were asked to give
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the fabric content of the book I should say that it is seventy-five percent fact, and twenty-five percent fiction based on fact.” Rodgers and Hammerstein used Landon’s book as their primary source material. The musical, therefore, is not a perfect representation of King Mongkut’s world. They took artistic liberties with their characters and narration, emphasizing the impact Anna had on the King’s politics and morals and romanticizing their relationship for added dramatic tension. As modern biographers have discovered, the true story of Anna and the King is far more complex. Rodger’s and Hammerstein’s version, however, retains the integrity of the original story. Their changes enhance the impact of Anna and the King’s relationship and highlight the story’s themes of tolerance, enlightenment, and respect.
Anna Harriet Leonowens Although she would later be immortalized for her years in Siam, Anna Harriet Edwards (18311915) was raised just across the continent, by an English soldier and his wife in Bombay, India. As part of a large military family, she spent her childhood moving from barrack to barrack, surrounded by people of many races and backgrounds. Although she would later attest to a pure English ancestry, Anna was most likely Anglo-Indian, the granddaughter of a European soldier and his Indian wife. When she was 17, Anna married the only love of her life, Thomas Louis Leon Owens. After mourning the death of two children, they had a daughter and son, Avis and Louis. After only 10 years of marriage, Tom died, leaving his wife hardly any money and no means of supporting herself and two children—so later that year, Anna Leonowens arrived in Singapore with a fabricated past, hoping to create a fresh start for her family. She claimed to be a proper Englishwoman, unfamiliar and yet enchanted with her new Eastern surroundings. Although the real Anna probably never set foot in England
before visiting Siam, this persona gave her the status she needed to ensure a prosperous life for Avis and Louis. Anna and Louis, five years old, arrived in Bangkok in March 1862, where they would stay for more than five years. Avis, then seven years old, was sent to boarding school in England, and Anna’s longing for her, as well as the loss of her other two children, helped establish a strong bond with the maternal women of King Mongkut’s harem. Despite fundamental philosophical differences with the King, Continued on Page 11