The King and I Fifty years after its premiere, Rodgers biographer Meryle Secrest summed up the musical: The King and I The King and I is the fifth musical by the team of composer Richard Rodgers and dramatist Oscar Hammerstein II. It is based on Margaret Landon's novel, "Anna and the King of Siam" (1944), which is in turn derived from the memoirs of Anna Leonowens, governess to the children of King Mongkut of Siam in the early 1860s. The musical's plot relates the experiences of Anna, a British schoolteacher hired as part of the King's drive to modernize his country. The relationship between
Anna and the King of Siam (film) Anna and the King of Siam (film) Anna and the King of Siam is a 1946 drama film directed by John Cromwell. An adaptation of the 1944 novel of the same name by Margaret Landon, it was based on the fictionalized diaries of Anna Leonowens, an Anglo-Indian woman who claimed to be British and became governess in the Royal Court of Siam (now modern Thailand) during the 1860s. Darryl F. Zanuck read Landon's book in galleys and immediately bought the film rights. The story mainly concerns the culture clash of the Imperialist Victorian values of the British Empire with the