Picnic at Hanging Rock, the 1975 film directed by Peter Weir, has achieved iconic status in Australian cinema, while the story on which it is based has also yielded a television drama series, a ballet, plays, and a musical. Indeed, the fiftieth anniversary of the film is being marked by the Sydney Theatre Company’s revival of Tom Wright’s modern adaptation. The story enjoying this long and varied life was originally published as a mystery novel in 1967. Yet the author of that story, Joan Lindsay (1896-1984), is herself something of a mystery. Aged seventy-one at the time of her novel’s publication and scarcely known as a writer, she has received little recognition since.
Joan Lindsay: The hidden life of the woman who wrote Picnic at Hanging Rock by Brenda Niall
Text Publishing, $36.99 pb, 248 pp
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I might add too I have read this biography only in recent days and found it a little over-earnest in its attempt to attribute more mystery to Joan Lindsay than is perhaps warranted.