Joan Lindsay

Joan Lindsay was an Australian novelist and painter who was best known for her novel Picnic at Hanging Rock, a historical mystery that sparked public interest for its ambiguous presentation as a true story and its unresolved ending. She was born in St Kilda East, Victoria on 16 November 1896, the daughter of Theyre à Beckett Weigall, a prominent judge, and Ann Sophie Weigall, a musician. She had two sisters and a brother. She attended a boarding school called Carhue, which later became Clyde Girls' Grammar School and relocated to Woodend near Mount Macedon. She studied art at the National Gallery of Victoria Art School from 1916 to 1919 under Frederick McCubbin and Bernard Hall. She exhibited her paintings in several galleries and had a solo show in 1920. She also wrote poetry and short stories. In 1922, she married Daryl Lindsay, a painter and member of the famous Lindsay family of artists. They moved to London in 1926 and travelled extensively in Europe, where Joan met many famous writers and artists. They returned to Australia in 1935 and settled in Mulberry Hill, a Georgian-style house in Langwarrin South, Victoria. They donated the house to the National Trust in 1980. Joan published her first novel, Through Darkest Pondelayo, a satire of travel writing, under the pseudonym Serena Livingstone-Stanley in 1936. She did not publish another novel until 1961, when she wrote Time Without Clocks, a memoir of her early years of marriage. Her most famous work, Picnic at Hanging Rock, was published in 1967. It was a historical novel set in 1900, about the disappearance of three schoolgirls and their teacher during a picnic at Hanging Rock, a volcanic formation in Victoria. The novel was deliberately written in a way that suggested it was based on a true event, although no evidence of such an incident exists. The novel was widely praised for its atmospheric and mysterious quality, and became a bestseller in Australia and abroad. It was also adapted into a film by Peter Weir in 1975, which became a classic of Australian cinema. Joan wrote several more novels, including The Sundowners (1969), a novelisation of the film of the same name; Syd Sixpence (1973), a children's book; The Well (1976), a Gothic novel; Something More (1984), a sequel to Picnic at Hanging Rock; and The Secret of Hanging Rock (1987), a booklet that revealed the intended ending of Picnic at Hanging Rock. Joan also wrote essays, articles, reviews, and an unpublished play. She received several awards and honours for her contribution to literature and culture, such as the Order of Australia (AM) in 1974 and an honorary doctorate from Monash University in 1979. She died on 23 December 1984 at the age of 88 at her home in Mulberry Hill.