The novel was written and marketed as a true story, though there is no historical record or evidence of a disappearance of four schoolgirls ever taking place at the famed rock. In 1967, Joan Lindsay published her most popular and enduring work, Picnic at Hanging Rock. In 1943, Daryl became the Director of the National Gallery of Victoria, and in 1956, he was knighted. As her husband’s painting career took off, Lindsay began focusing on writing novels and plays, receiving great acclaim for her satirical novel Through Darkest Pondelayo, a book which lampooned the then-popular genre of sensationalist travel literature.

The two remained together during the fallow and unpredictable years of the Great Depression, renting out their large Mulberry Hill house to make ends meet. Lindsay went on to study at the National Gallery of Victoria Art School in Melbourne and married a fellow art student named Daryl Lindsay in 1922. Despite the turbulence at school, Lindsay was regarded as a good student and excelled in art. At 13 she was sent to boarding school-during her years at the Melbourne girls’ school, the institution changed names and ownership. She described her childhood as “uneventful,” and was raised in a mansion called St. Joan Lindsay was born into a prominent Australian family just a few years before the turn of the 20th century.

Picnic at Hanging Rock by Joan Lindsay