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The story of a school party to Hanging Rock in Victoria's Mt Macedon which ends in tragedy when three girls and a teacher vanish, the original version of the book included a final chapter in which the mystery was resolved.
Lindsay wrote the novel at her home Mulberry Hill in Baxter, on Victoria's Mornington Peninsula.
Prior to publication, the final chapter was removed. Chapter eighteen, as it was known, was not widely discussed until the mid-1980s, but in 1987 was finally published as The Secret of Hanging Rock by Angus & Robertson Publishing.
It was released in paperback by Penguin in 1970, and in 1973 was optioned as a film by producer Patricia Lovell.
The story is best remembered for the 1975 atmospheric film adaptation, directed by Australian director Peter Weir.
Certainly one of the most significant Australian films ever made, Picnic at Hanging Rock was produced by Patricia Lovell , Hal McElroy and Jim McElroy . Peter Weir directed the film, and after screenwriter David Williamson proved to be unavailable, Williamson recommended Cliff Green for the job.
The screenplay, written by Green from Lindsay's novel, tells the story of the mysterious disappearance of three schoolgirls and their teacher on Valentine's Day in 1900. The reason for their disappearance, whether by human or supernatural agency, is never discovered, but their disappearance has a profound effect upon everybody in their community.
Filming commenced at Hanging Rock on 2 February, 1975.
The film opens on the morning of Saturday, February 14, 1900. The story begins at Appleyard College in Woodend, Victoria (The shooting location was actually Martindale Hall, in South Australia) where we are introduced to this microcosm of English propriety - a traditional English college for young ladies, set in the wild, chaotic landscape of the Australian outback.
That theme - the inevitable clash of transplanted English tradition with the ancient, spiritual land wilderness of Australia - permeates the film. The veneer of order which comes with the transplanted English tradition masks a community simmering with emotion: young Sara's (Margaret Nelson) crush on Miranda ( Anne Louise Lambert ), gardener Tom's ( Tony Llewellyn-Jones ) affair with Minnie ( Jackie Weaver ) and more.
The school is headed by the stentorian Mrs Appleyard ( Rachel Roberts), an indomitable and unbending figurehead of authority. Her staff include the remote mathematics mistress Miss McCraw ( Vivean Gray ), who vanishes on the Rock with three pupils, the young and beautiful Mademoiselle de Portiers ( Helen Morse ) who teaches French and deportment, and the jittery Miss Lumley ( Kirsty Child ), who is anxious to please Mrs Appleyard.
Although she only commands a little more than a half-hour of screen time, the film's visual centrepiece is undoubtedy Miranda ( Anne-Louise Lambert ), a hauntingly beautiful young student whose beauty is compared at one point, by Mademoiselle de Portiers, to one of Botticelli's angels.
Her circle of friends includes Irma ( Karen Robson ), Marion ( Jane Vallis ), Rosamund ( Ingrid Mason ) and the waifish Sara ( Margaret Nelson ) whose affection for Miranda stems from a deep crush. Another pupil, Edith ( Christine Schuler ) hovers on the edge of Miranda's circle, desperate for acceptance.
During the picnic, a handful of the girls - Miranda, Irma, Marion and Edith - decide to explore the rock in direct defiance of Mrs Appleyard's specific instruction. One of the teachers, Miss McCraw - follows them. By sunset, only Edith has returned, hysterical and unable to explain what has transpired.
The police investigation led by Sgt Bumpher ( Wyn Roberts ) and Constable Jones ( Garry McDonald ) leads them to a young Englishman, Michael Fitzhubert ( Dominic Guard ) who was lunching at the rock with his family, Colonel Fitzhubert ( Peter Collingwood ) and Mrs Fitzhubert ( Olga Dickie ).
Michael, with Albert ( John Jarratt ), the Fitzhubert party's young valet, spent part of the lunch watching the picnic, but offer no clues in the investigation.
The town of Woodend quickly becomes restless as news of the disappearance spreads. The townsfolk are angry, demanding answers, while Michael, and later Albert, search the rock - discovering Irma, but she has no memory of what happened on the rock, or of the fate of her companions.
The film's rhythm is marked by a recurring sense of unease, the use of lingering, even haunting, images of the Rock and the Australian outback, much of which can be attributed to Weir and the extraordinary skill of director of photography Russell Boyd.
Compounding the film's dreamlike quality is the sometimes disjointed but intriguing dialogue - in the opening sequence, Sara ( Margaret Nelson ) misquotes Poe whispering "all that we see, and all that we seem, are a dream; a dream within a dream". (The correct quote is "All that we see or seem | Is but a dream within a dream".
It is worth noting that Weir originally cast Mason as Miranda, overlooking Lambert because she had a remoteness that set her apart from the other girls at the auditioning. Later, realising that such remoteness was precisely what he hoped to tap, he re-cast Lambert as Miranda. Mason was persuaded to stay on, in the role of Rosamund.
One thread of the story - the fact that the orphaned Sara and the valet Albert were clearly brother and sister - remained unresolved within the frame of the story, and while each character relates an anecdote which confirms the relationship, they never meet.
Although the setting is unquestionably real (Hanging Rock is a real geological feature just outside Melbourne, Australia) it is worth pointing out that the story itself is not. Fruitless searches of newspaper archives from the time, coupled with the fact that in 1900, St Valentine's Day was not a Saturday, leads to the inevitable realisation that the story is entirely fictional.
Curiously, however, the way the film presents itself as a historical truth, even bookending the story with a pseudo-historical prologue and epilogue, has led some viewers to assume that it is based on real events. Lindsay did little to dispel that myth and, in many interviews, either refused to confirm it was entirely fiction, or hinted that parts of the book were fictitious, but other parts were not.
The film had a budget of A$440,000. It premiered at the Hindley Cinema Complex in Adelaide on the 8th of August, 1975.
In honor of the film's success, and its enduring popularity, Picnic at Hanging Rock is still screened annually in the picnic grounds at Hanging Rock, Victoria, on St Valentine's Day.
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