THE TREASURED ONE: The Story of Rudivoravan, Princess of Siam

by Ruth Adams Knight ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 1, 1957

A granddaughter of Anna's King of Siam has told her fascinating story to Ruth Adams Knight, and in these pages one can see something of ""what happened next"" after Anna introduced English thought and ways into a fabulous court. Rudivoravan grew up in the court, daughter of a royal scholar-playwright father, but when she was ten she was sent to England for schooling. For a brief period she lived at the Thai legation in London, then was sent to a rectory in a countryside village to live in a family with four daughters. Mrs. Sturges-Jones gave her the mothering she still craved, and when three years later she was recalled to Bangkok she had become completely the English schoolgirl, and was disconsolate. The years following her return are a repository of Thai traditions and the changes from the old ways, bits of history interwoven with thumbnail sketches of royal personages; a running sketch of a Westernized girl and her very human problems of growing up in an elaborate court of the East, her marriages and children, her abortive attempts to run small business ventures, and finally the war years and the air raids. In 1947 her brother, Prince Wan, was Thai ambassador to Washington and appointed her husband as financial attache. Though the job was of brief duration, they both fell in love with America and in 1950 the princess returned to Washington, and now does a half hour broadcast over the Voice of America, her service to the women of Siam...While the style lacks distinction, the substance is absorbingly interesting.

Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1957

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Dutton

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1957

Categories: NONFICTION