Written in 1967 by Joan Lindsay, Picnic at Hanging Rock is a historical fiction novel and ghost story set in a girls’ boarding school located in Australia. A critically-acclaimed movie based on the book was made in 1975 by Peter Weir. Now, this literary classic slated to be a reimagining of Picnic at Hanging Rock. In 2018, it will be released as an Amazon mini-series starring Natalie Dormer from HBO’s Game of Thrones.

Penguin Classics has just released a new edition of Picnic at Hanging Rock, with an introduction by novelist Maile Meloy. The story was Joan Lindsay’s debut as a novelist at age 70, and is considered to be one of Australia’s greatest literary works. Set in a Victorian 1900, the plot circles around the disappearance of three girls who attended Appleyard College for Young Ladies. The mystery, deftly told, is only the beginning of the story behind this book, however. Lindsay, who wrote the novel in less than two weeks, blurs the line between fantasy and reality, never revealing whether or not these young ladies were real people who disappeared or if they were figments of her imagination.

To understand the cultural impact of Picnic at Hanging Rock, we also have to take a trip back in time. Following its original publication in 1967, the book was adapted to film not long afterward. The film quickly became an Australian cultural phenomenon, and the story has since gone on to inspire other, intriguing stories of missing girls. For some, Lindsay’s novel is proof that the disappearances did occur; others, are uncomfortable in their uncertainty. This story and the speculation that surrounds it to present day is, in many ways, a foundation for the “gone girl” trope omnipresent in the mysteries and thrillers that followed.

In this age of information, where everything is exposed, are there riddles left to unravel? Picnic at Hanging Rock promises that the answer to this question is “Yes.” For, as Lindsay herself once wrote: “Whether Picnic at Hanging Rock is fact or fiction, my readers must decide for themselves. As the fateful picnic took place in the year nineteen hundred, and all the characters who appear in this book are long since dead, it hardly seems important.” Only time will tell if the mysterious disappearances of three, boarding school girls will recapture the imaginations of readers and viewers alike.

You can pick up a copy of Picnic at Hanging Rock at Amazon.com and wherever books are sold.

Tags | classic mystery, historical fiction, mystery