Anna Leonowens: A Life Beyond "The King and I"

by Leslie Smith Dow

The remarkable true story of a Anna Harriet Leonowens. Her charismatic teaching style transferred over to her other adventures. Her life in Canada, where she lived for 40 years, was also remarkable.

Genres: History, Biography

154 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 1992

About the author

I am the author of print and e-books including the award-winning historical biographies Adele Hugo: La Miserable and Anna Leonowens: A Life Beyond the King and I. I am a veteran journalist and freelance writer, and enjoy travel and reading improbable-but-true stories.

Read Elissa Barnard’s review of the re-issued e-edition of Adele Hugo in www.localxpress.ca at https://www.localxpress.ca/local-arts....

Goose Lane Editions have recently published an e-edition of my award-winning book, Adele Hugo: La Miserable, with a new Afterword detailing a fascinating attempt to authenticate a painting which may be of Adele, and just may have been painted by legendary French painter Edouard Manet. Adele Hugo was the daughter of French writer Victor Hugo, and she ran away after a soldier, spending many years in Halifax, Nova Scotia and then Barbados. She went mad and was finally brought back to Paris where she remained in an institution for the rest of her life.

Reviews

[Aren Morris]

It took me a long time to read this book, in part because I was using it as research for a current WIP, but also because it is a bit dry as reading material goes.
While it is full of facts and information as well as an attempted narrative of Anna Leonowen’s life, it seems to be missing what I personally had been looking for… her spirit. I would have liked copies of her letters, excepts from her manuscripts/ novels, her own words about herself and her life, etc.
What is included is a lot of thought about who she was and what she did recorded by those around her.
It is well written and about halfway through I started paying attention to the endnotes for each chapter which contained, it seemed, some of the juiciest and most interesting information.
A great research tool. Would recommend to anyone interested in the life of Anna Leonowens. Cannot say it makes a good read in general.

[Carolyn Harris]

An introduction to the life of Anna Leonowens, whose memoirs and the novel based on them inspired the musical, The King and I. The author clearly admires Anna and her ability to reinvent herself amidst the rigid class distinctions of the 19th century British Empire. The chapters on Siam are a bit too uncritical of Anna's memoirs and take some of her observations, which have been contested by subsequent scholars and members of the Thai royal family, at face value. There is a tendency to employ historical fiction techniques, imagining Anna's thoughts as she traveled around the world. The strongest chapters are about Anna's later life in Canada and her contributions to the social, cultural and philanthropic life of Montreal and Halifax. An interesting read.

[Ainsley]

In comparison to Smith Dow's biography of Adele Hugo, this was a major disappointment. The publisher poorly served Smith Dow, too: the book is physically unappealing and leaves the impression that minimizing the number of pages was the primary concern.