Margaret Landon

Margaret Landon ( born September 7, 1903 in Somers, Wisconsin, as Margaret Dorothea Mortenson, † December 4, 1993 in Alexandria, Virginia) was an American writer who primarily for her novel Anna and the King of Siam about life Anna Leonowens became famous.

She was one of three daughters in a devout Methodist family. This then moved to Evanston, Illinois, where she attended high school. In 1925 she graduated at the Wheaton College ( s) in Wheaton, Illinois. She taught for a year and then married Kenneth Landon, whom she had met at Wheaton. 1927 both went as Presbyterian missionaries to Thailand.

Landon had three children and led a missionary school in Trang. She read a great deal about the country and learned about Anna Leonowens. When the family returned to America in 1937, she began to write. In 1942, she moved to Washington, DC, when her husband decided to join the State Department as Southeast Asia consultant.

Her novel about Leonowens was after its publication in 1944 an immediate bestseller. A later work on their own experiences, Never Dies the Dream from 1949, but did not have nearly as much success.