Anna Leonowens

Anna Leonowens
Anna Leonowens, c. 1905
Born	Ann Hariett Emma Edwards (1831-11-05)5 November 1831 Ahmednagar, Bombay Presidency, India
Died	19 January 1915(1915-01-19) (aged 83) Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Resting place	Mount Royal Cemetery
Spouse	Thomas Leon (or Lane/Lean) Owens ​ ​ (m. 1849; died 1859)​
Children	4, including Louis T. Leonowens
Relatives	Boris Karloff (great-nephew)

Anna Harriette Leonowens (born Ann Hariett Emma Edwards;^[1] 5 November 1831 – 19 January 1915) was an Anglo-Indian or Indian-born British^[2] travel writer, educator, and social activist.

She became well known with the publication of her memoirs, beginning with The English Governess at the Siamese Court (1870), which chronicled her experiences in Siam (modern Thailand), as teacher to the children of the Siamese King Mongkut. Leonowens's own account was fictionalised in Margaret Landon's best-selling novel Anna and the King of Siam (1944), as well as adaptations for other media such as Rodgers and Hammerstein's 1951 musical The King and I.

During the course of her life, Leonowens also lived in Western Australia, Singapore and Penang, the United States, Canada and Germany. In later life, she was a lecturer of Indology and a suffragist. Among other achievements, she co-founded the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design.