It is a wonderful story. The widow of a dashing military man enters the exotic world of a foreign court. There, she matches wits with the King, a charismatic leader torn between the ancient tradition of his country and the demands of the modern world. The young widow shows him a vibrant path to a better future, thus influencing generations to come.
This is the story of Anna Leonowens, as it has come down to us in Anna's two books, the musical The King and I, and the 1999 film starring Jodie Foster. It is an exciting true-life story, except for one problem—it isn't true. In fact, the story has so many inaccuracies that the Thai government—Thailand is the modern Siam—did not allow The King and I to be shown within its borders.
Despite—or perhaps because of—the bendable facts of her story, Anna is an interesting study in grit and resourcefulness. Later in life, she moved to Canada, where she helped to found numerous important cultural institutions. She died in Montreal in 1915.