[ Anna Leonowens / The English Governess at the Siamese Court ]
Leonowens (1831 - 1915) was a British (born in India) writer, educator, and social activist. She is best known today as the "Anna" of Anna and the King of Siam, a somewhat fictionalized 1944 novelization by Margaret Landon of the diaries Leonowens kept while working for the King of Siam as the teacher of his children. Anna and the King of Siam was filmed in 1946 (Irene Dunn played Anna, Rex Harrison played the king), which was in turn adapted as a 1951 musical, The King and I, by Rodgers and Hammerstein (starring Gertrude Lawrence and Yul Brynner on Broadway; when filmed in 1956, Anna was played by Deborah Kerr with Yul Brynner again playing the King of Siam). Leonowens' experience in Siam was also the basis for a short-lived TV series in 1972, an animated film in 1999, and a 1999 film, Anna and the King, with Jodie Foster playing Anna and Chow Yun-Fat as the king.
Leonowens travelled extensively in her life, and lived in a number of countries. She was active as a writer, a supporter of women's suffrage, and an educator, helping to found the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design and running other schools during her lifetime. She was fairly adept at reinventing herself when family issues or life events disrupted her existence. In 1862 she accepted an offer to teach the wives (39 of them) and children (82 of them) of the King of Siam, and remained in that position for six years.
Leonowens' account of her time there, The English Governess at the Siamese Court, was first published in 1870 and reprinted several times since.
When Leonowens sailed to Siam (now Thailand), she took with her her son and her Newfoundland dog, Bessy. Her autobiographical account of her time in Siam begins with a description of her journey to that country. She mentions the two dogs belonging to the ship's captain, then her own dog:
And there was our own true Bessy, — a Newfoundland, great and good, — discreet, reposeful, dignified, fastidious, not to be cajoled into confidences and familiarities with strange dogs, whether official or professional. Very human was her gentle countenance, and very loyal, I doubt not, her sense of responsibility, as she followed anxiously my boy and me, interpreting with her heart the thoughts she read in our faces, and responding with her sympathetic eyes.
Somewhat strangely, that is the only mention of her dog in this work.