Picnic at Hanging Rock
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 Picnic at Hanging Rock novel cover |
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| Author | Joan Lindsay |
|---|---|
| Country |  Australia |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Historical novel |
| Publisher | F. W. Cheshire |
| Released | 1967 |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover, Paperback) |
| ISBN | NA & reissue ISBN 0-670-81828-3 (1987 Viking ed.) |
Picnic at Hanging Rock is the title of a 1967 novel by Australian author Joan Lindsay, and the 1975 film adaptation directed by Peter Weir.
Both the novel and the film imply that they are based on a true story; the film and book even begins and ends the story with a pseudo-historical prologue and epilogue. However, while Hanging Rock is a real geological feature near Mt Macedon, just outside Melbourne, the story is entirely fictional. Many readers and viewers assume that the story is true, and Lindsay did little to dispel that myth, in many interviews either refusing to confirm it was entirely fiction, or hinting that parts of the book were fictitious, and others were not. 14 February 1900 was actually a Wednesday, not a Saturday as it is depicted in the story.
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[edit] The novel
Lindsay wrote the novel at her home Mulberry Hill in Baxter, on Victoria's Mornington Peninsula. It was first published in 1967 in Australia by Cheshire Publishing and was released in paperback by Penguin in 1970. In 1973, it was optioned as a film by film producer Patricia Lovell.
[edit] Plot summary
The plot concerns a trip by a party of girls from an exclusive private school, who travel to Hanging Rock in Victoria's Mount Macedon area for a picnic on St. Valentine's Day, 1900. The excursion ends in tragedy when three girls and a teacher mysteriously vanish after climbing the rock. They are never seen again and no reason for their disappearance is ever given.
[edit] The mystery
The insoluble mystery of the disappearances was arguably the key to the success of both the book and the subsequent film. This aroused enough lasting public interest that in 1980, a book of hypothetical solutions (by Yvonne Rosseau) was published, called The Murders at Hanging Rock[1].
In fact, Lindsay's original draft included a final chapter in which the mystery was resolved, but Lindsay removed it prior to publication, and it was not released until after her death. Chapter Eighteen, as it is known, was not widely known until the mid-1980s, but in 1987 was finally published as The Secret of Hanging Rock by Angus & Robertson Publishing.
[edit] The film
Peter Weir's film of Picnic at Hanging Rock premiered at the Hindley Cinema Complex in Adelaide on 8 August 1975. It became one of the first Australian films to reach an international audience, and thus has an important place in Australian film history.
