Editing Anna Leonowens (section)

==Literary career==
By 1869, Leonowens was in New York City, where she briefly opened a school for girls in the [[West New Brighton, Staten Island|West New Brighton]] section of [[Staten Island]], and she began contributing travel articles to a [[Boston]] journal, ''[[The Atlantic Monthly]]'', including "The Favorite of the Harem", reviewed by ''[[The New York Times]]'' as "an Eastern love story, having apparently a strong basis of truth".<ref>'September Magazines', ''The New York Times'' (2 September 1872), p. 2.</ref> She expanded her articles into two volumes of memoirs, beginning with ''The English Governess at the Siamese Court'' (1870),<ref>Anna Leonowens (1870) [https://books.google.com/books?id=2RYWLVLbr4wC ''The English Governess at the Siamese Court''], Fields, Osgood and Co., Boston</ref> which earned her immediate fame but also brought charges of [[sensationalism]]. In her writing, she casts a critical eye over court life; the account is not always a flattering one, and has become the subject of controversy in [[Thailand]], and she has also been accused of exaggerating her influence with the king.<ref>Henry Maxwell, Letter to the Editor: "The King and I", ''The Times'' (19 October 1953), p. 3, col. F.</ref><ref>Direck Jayanama, Letter to the Editor: {{"'}}The King and I' Foreign Policy of a Siamese Ruler", ''The Times'' (26 October 1953), p. 11, col. F.</ref>

There have also been claims of fabrication: the likelihood of the argument over slavery, for example, when King Mongkut was for 27 years a Buddhist monk and later abbot, before ascending to the throne. It is thought that his religious training and vocation would never have permitted the views expressed by Leonowens's cruel, eccentric and self-indulgent monarch. Even the title of her memoir is inaccurate, as she was neither English nor did she work as a governess:{{sfnp |Habegger |2014 |p=4 }} Her task was to teach English, not to educate and care for the royal children comprehensively. Leonowens claimed to have spoken Thai fluently, but the examples of that language presented in her books are unintelligible, even if one allows for clumsy transcription.<ref>{{Cite book |author=William Warren |title=Who Was Anna Leonowens? |series=Travelers' Tales Thailand |year=2002 |page=86}}</ref>

Leonowens was a [[first-wave feminism|feminist]], and in her writings she tended to focus on what she saw as the subjugated status of Siamese women, including those sequestered within the ''Nang Harm'', or royal [[harem]]. She emphasised that although Mongkut had been a forward-looking ruler, he had desired to preserve customs such as prostration and [[sexual slavery]] that seemed unenlightened and degrading. The sequel, ''Romance of the Harem'' (1873),<ref>Anna Leonowens (1873) [https://books.google.com/books?id=_hdp2H2VNscC ''Romance of the Harem''], James R. Osgood and Co., Boston</ref> incorporates tales based on palace gossip, including the king's alleged torture and execution of one of his concubines, Tuptim. The story lacks independent corroboration and is dismissed as out of character for the king by some critics.<!--can explain which critics--><ref>{{cite news|author=Erlanger, Steven |title=A Confection Built on a Novel Built on a Fabrication |date=7 April 1996 |work=[[The New York Times]] |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1996/04/07/theater/theather-a-confection-built-on-a-novel-built-on-a-fabrication.html |access-date=8 August 2008}}</ref> A great-granddaughter, Princess [[Vudhichalerm Vudhijaya]] (b. 21 May 1934), stated in a 2001 interview, "King Mongkut was in the [[Bhikkhu|monk's]] hood for 27 years before he was king. He would never have ordered an execution. It is not the [[Buddhism|Buddhist]] way." She added that the same Tuptim was her grandmother and had married Chulalongkorn as one of his minor wives.<ref>Nancy Dunne, {{"'}}Life as a royal is not for me': A Thai princess tells Nancy Dunne the truth about 'The King and I' and how she prefers a simple life in the US", ''Financial Times'' (25 August 2001), p. 7.</ref> Moreover, there were no dungeons below the Grand Palace or anywhere else in Bangkok as the high ground-water level would not allow this. Nor are there any accounts of a public burning by other foreigners staying in Siam during the same period as Leonowens.<ref>{{Cite book |author=William Warren |title=Who Was Anna Leonowens? |series=Travelers' Tales Thailand |year=2002 |pages=86–87}}</ref>

While in the United States, Leonowens also earned much-needed money through popular lecture tours. At venues such as the house of Mrs. Sylvanus Reed in [[53rd Street (Manhattan)|Fifty-third Street, New York City]], in the regular members' course at Association Hall, or under the auspices of bodies such as the [[Brooklyn Historical Society|Long Island Historical Society]], she lectured on subjects including "Christian Missions to Pagan Lands" and "The Empire of Siam, and the City of the Veiled Women".<ref name="Mrs. Leonowens' First Lecture' 1874 p. 4">"Mrs. Leonowens' First Lecture", ''The New York Times'' (20 October 1874), p. 4.</ref><ref>"Amusements", ''The New York Times'' (31 October 1871), p. 4.</ref><ref>"Lectures and Meetings to Come", ''The New York Times'' (16 November 1874), p. 8.</ref><ref>"A Boston Letter", ''Independent'' (10 October 1872), p. 6.</ref> ''The New York Times'' reported: "Mrs. Leonowens' purpose is to awaken an interest, and enlist sympathies, in behalf of missionary labors, particularly in their relation to the destiny of Asiatic women."<ref name="Mrs. Leonowens' First Lecture' 1874 p. 4" /> She joined the literary circles of New York and Boston and made the acquaintance of local lights on the lecture circuit, such as [[Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.|Oliver Wendell Holmes]], [[Henry Wadsworth Longfellow]] and [[Harriet Beecher Stowe]], author of ''[[Uncle Tom's Cabin]]'', a book whose [[Abolitionism in the United States|anti-slavery]] message Leonowens had brought to the attention of the royal household. She said the book influenced Chulalongkorn's reform of slavery in Siam, a process he had begun in 1868, and which would end with its total abolition in 1915.<ref>{{cite journal |first=David |last=Feeny |title=The Decline of Property Rights in Man in Thailand, 1800–1913 |journal=[[Journal of Economic History]] |volume=49 |issue=2 |year=1989 |pages=285–296 [p. 293] |doi=10.1017/S0022050700007932 |s2cid=154816549 }}</ref> Meanwhile, Louis had accumulated debts in the U.S. by 1874 and fled the country. He became estranged from his mother and did not see her for 19 years.<ref name=Historical/> In the summer of 1878, she taught [[Sanskrit]] at [[Amherst College]].{{sfnp |Morgan |2008 |p=186 }}