Editing Joan Lindsay (section)

==Life and career==

===Early life===
[[File:Joan Lindsay 1914.png|thumb|left|150px|alt=A photo of a young Joan Lindsay, posed in a school photograph|Lindsay in a 1914 school photograph.]]
'''Joan à Beckett Weigall''' was born in [[St Kilda East, Victoria|St Kilda East]], [[Victoria (Australia)|Victoria]], Australia, a suburb of [[Melbourne, Victoria|Melbourne]], the third daughter of Theyre à Beckett Weigall,<ref>{{cite book|last1=Campbell|first1=Ruth|title=Weigall, Theyre à Beckett (1860–1926)|chapter=Theyre à Beckett Weigall (1860–1926) |url=http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/weigall-theyre-a-beckett-9036|publisher=Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 12, 1990|access-date=25 February 2016}}</ref> a prominent judge. His [[cousin]], [[William Arthur Callendar à Beckett]], was father to [[Emma Minnie Boyd]] and thus Lindsay was related to the [[Boyd family]] including writer [[Martin Boyd]].<ref name="oneill">{{cite Australian Dictionary of Biography |id2=lindsay-joan-a-beckett-14176|title=Lindsay, Joan à Beckett (1896–1984)|author=O'Neill, Terrence|date=2012|volume=18|access-date=31 October 2015}}</ref> Her mother, Ann Sophie Weigall (née Hamilton), was the daughter of the [[Scotland|Scottish]] born [[Robert Hamilton (civil servant)|Sir Robert Hamilton]], a [[Governor of Tasmania]];<ref>[http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/lindsay-joan-a-beckett-14176 Australian Dictionary of Biography: Lindsay, Joan a Becket]. Retrieved 17 October 2017</ref> she was a musician born and raised in [[Dublin]].<ref name="frith">{{cite news|title=Fact and fiction in Joan Lindsay's "Picnic at Hanging Rock"|author=Frith, Sarah L.|date=1990|work=Minerva Access is the Institutional Repository of The University of Melbourne|url=https://minerva-access.unimelb.edu.au/bitstream/handle/11343/35966/269049_Frith.pdf?sequence=1}}</ref> Lindsay had two sisters, Mim and Nancy, and a brother, Theyre Jr.<ref name="frith"/> Lindsay spent her early years in a mansion called "St Margaret's", at 151 Alma Road, East St Kilda. She described her childhood as "outwardly happy and uneventful."<ref name="frith"/>

In 1909 at the age of thirteen, Lindsay was sent to a local boarding school, then called Carhue, to complete her education.<ref name="frith"/> During Lindsay's time there the school went through a change in ownership and was renamed the [[Clyde Girls' Grammar School]]; she was a model student. The school was relocated to near [[Mount Macedon]], five years after Joan's final year.<ref name="frith"/>{{sfn|Benson|2005|p=888}} After graduating from Clyde, Lindsay considered becoming an [[architect]], but decided to study art instead, enrolling at the [[National Gallery of Victoria Art School]] in Melbourne in 1916. There, while studying [[painting]], she was educated by [[Lindsay Bernard Hall|Bernard Hall]] and [[Frederick McCubbin]].<ref name="frith"/>

In 1920 she began sharing a Melbourne studio with [[Maie Casey, Baroness Casey|Maie Ryan (later Lady Casey)]]. Joan exhibited her watercolours and oils at two Melbourne exhibitions in 1920, one of which was titled "The Neo-Pantechnicists"<ref name="da">{{cite web|url=https://www.daao.org.au/bio/lady-joan-lindsay/events|work=Design & Art Australia Online|title=Lady Joan Lindsay|access-date=23 October 2015}}</ref> and exhibited with the [[Victorian Artists Society]].<ref name="da"/> She and Casey also collaborated on an unfinished book together, titled ''Portrait of Anna''.<ref name="oneill"/>

===Marriage to Daryl Lindsay; early works===
While studying at the National Gallery of Victoria Art School, she met fellow art student [[Daryl Lindsay]].<ref name="frith"/> The two married in [[Marylebone, London]], England on [[Valentine's Day|St. Valentine's Day]] 1922. The day was always a special occasion for her, and she set her most famous work, ''[[Picnic at Hanging Rock (novel)|Picnic at Hanging Rock]]'', on St. Valentine's Day.

[[File:Joan Lindsay.jpg|thumb|right|185px|Lindsay, c. 1920.]]
When the couple returned to live in Australia, they renovated a farmhouse in [[Baxter, Victoria|Baxter]] — [[Mulberry Hill (Langwarrin South, Victoria)|Mulberry Hill]] — and lived there until the [[Great Depression]] forced them to take up more humble lodgings in [[Bacchus Marsh, Victoria|Bacchus Marsh]], renting out their home until the economic situation improved. During this time, Lindsay shifted her focus from painting to writing, and wrote two plays, both of which explored the [[uncanny]] and the [[macabre]] — ''Cataract'', and ''Wolf!'', the latter of which was a collaboration with Margot Goyder and Ann Joske ("[[Margot Neville]]"), Australia's best-known detective story writers at the time.{{Sfn|O'Neill|2009|p=49}} Though neither of the plays was published, ''Wolf!'' was performed on stage in [[Swanage]], England in May 1930.{{Sfn|O'Neill|2009|p=49}}

After returning from travel in England and Europe, Lindsay published her first novel, ''[[Through Darkest Pondelayo|Through Darkest Pondelayo: An account of the adventures of two English ladies on a cannibal island]]'', in 1936, under the [[pseudonym]] '''Serena Livingstone-Stanley'''.{{Sfn|O'Neill|2009|p=49}} Published by [[Chatto & Windus]] in the United Kingdom, the novel is structured as a [[parody]] of popular [[travel books]] of the time but filled with intentional grammatical errors, also functioning as a [[satire]] on English tourists abroad. According to Lindsay's cousin [[Martin Boyd]], the novel was "one of the best collections of [[malapropisms]] in the English language."{{Sfn|O'Neill|2009|p=49}} Lindsay helped Boyd write the outline for his novel, ''Nuns in Jeopardy'' (1940).{{sfn|Arnold|Hay|2008|p=195}}

Lindsay also contributed articles, reviews and stories to various magazines and newspapers on art, literature and prominent people. In 1928, she interviewed actress [[Margaret Bannerman]] for Victoria's ''[[The Courier (Ballarat)|The Weekly Courier]]'', and, in 1941, co-authored the ''History of the Australian Red Cross'' with husband Daryl. In 1942, Lindsay published an essay of [[literary criticism]] on novelist [[George Moore (novelist)|George Moore]] in ''[[The Age]]'', titled "A Modern of the Nineties. George Moore: literary craftsman."<ref name="bib"/>

During this period, Daryl Lindsay abandoned painting to become Director of the [[National Gallery of Victoria]], a position he held between 1942 and 1955. The position necessitated their relocation to Melbourne until his retirement. They retained their country home during their Victoria sojourn. When Daryl was knighted in 1956,<ref>{{cite web|url=https://honours.pmc.gov.au/honours/awards/1082917|work=Australian Government|series=It's an Honour: Australia Celebrating Australians|title=Daryl Lindsay profile|access-date=21 November 2015|archive-date=15 January 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180115001356/http://www.itsanhonour.gov.au/honours/honour_roll/search.cfm?aus_award_id=1082917&search_type=advanced&showInd=true|url-status=live}}</ref> Joan became known as Lady Lindsay.

Her [[semi-autobiographical]] novel ''[[Time Without Clocks]]'' describes her wedding and idyllic early married life. The work takes its title from a strange ability which Joan described herself as having, of stopping clocks and machinery when she came close. The title also plays on the idea that this period in her life was unstructured and free. This was followed with ''Facts Soft and Hard'', a humorous, semi-autobiographical account of the Lindsays' travels in the United States while Daryl was on a [[Fulbright Program|Fulbright Award]],<ref name="oneill"/> which took the couple to [[New York City]] on a study tour of American art collections held by the [[Carnegie Corporation of New York|Carnegie Corporation]].<ref name="frith"/>

===''Picnic at Hanging Rock''===
''[[Picnic at Hanging Rock (novel)|Picnic at Hanging Rock]]'', published in 1967, is Lindsay's best known work. Lindsay wrote the novel over a four-week period<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.smh.com.au/news/victoria/hanging-out-for-a-mystery/2007/01/18/1169095907672.html?page=3/taglines|title=Hanging out for a mystery|work=Sydney Morning Herald|date=21 January 2007|access-date=28 January 2016}}</ref> at her home Mulberry Hill in [[Baxter, Victoria|Baxter]], on Victoria's [[Mornington Peninsula]], and constructed it around the real-life [[Hanging Rock, Victoria|Hanging Rock]], a monolith that had fascinated her since her childhood.{{Sfn|O'Neill|2009|p=51}} She compared the story to the work of [[Henry James]], citing the "book about the children in a haunted house with a governess" (''[[The Turn of the Screw]]'').<ref name="daily motion">{{cite video|people=Lindsay, Joan (subject); McKay, Ian (director); Taylor, John (interviewer)|title=Interview with Joan Lindsay|format=video recording|date=1975|publisher=Refern, NSW: AAV Australia for the Australia Council|access-date=25 October 2015|archive-date=1 January 1988|url=http://search.slv.vic.gov.au/primo_library/libweb/action/display.do?tabs=detailsTab&ct=display&fn=search&doc=SLV_VOYAGER692340&indx=1&recIds=SLV_VOYAGER692340&recIdxs=0&elementId=0&renderMode=poppedOut&displayMode=full&frbrVersion=&dscnt=0&scp.scps=scope%3A%28SLV_VOYAGER%29%2Cscope%3A%28SLV_DIGITOOL%29%2Cscope%3A%28SLVPRIMO%29&frbg=&tab=default_tab&dstmp=1445588179817&vl(10247183UI0)=any&srt=rank&mode=Basic&&dum=true&vl(1UIStartWith0)=contains&vl(freeText0)=joan%20lindsay&vid=MAIN|archive-url=http://search.slv.vic.gov.au/MAIN:SLV_VOYAGER692340}} (Excerpt available on [http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xf521f_joan-lindsay-interviewed_people DailyMotion])</ref>

The novel is [[historical fiction]], though Lindsay dropped hints that it was based on an actual event, and is framed as such in the novel's introduction. An ending that explained the girls' fates, in draft form, was excised by her publisher prior to publication.{{Sfn|O'Neill|2009|p=51}} The final chapter was published only in 1987 as a standalone book titled ''The Secret of Hanging Rock'', and also included critical commentary and interpretive theories on the novel. Lindsay based Appleyard College, the setting for the novel, on the school that she had attended, Clyde Girls Grammar School ([[Clyde School]]), at East St Kilda, Melbourne{{Sfn|Theobald|1998|p=52}}—which in 1919 was transferred to [[Woodend, Victoria]], in the immediate vicinity of Hanging Rock.{{sfn|Adelaide|1988|p=118}}

In a 1974 interview, Lindsay addressed readers' and critics' questioning about the novel's ambiguous conclusion, saying:<blockquote>Well, it was written as a mystery and it remains a mystery. If you can draw your own conclusions, that's fine, but I don't think that it matters. I wrote that book as a sort of atmosphere of a place, and it was like dropping a stone into the water. I felt that story, if you call it a story—that the thing that happened on St. Valentine's Day went on spreading, out and out and out, in circles.<ref name="daily motion"/></blockquote>

The novel's ambiguous conclusion led to significant interest from both public and critical readers, and the novel has drawn comparisons from literary critics to the work of [[E.M. Forster]] and [[Nathaniel Hawthorne]].<ref name="frith"/> It was made into a 1975 [[Picnic at Hanging Rock (film)|feature film]] by producers [[Patricia Lovell]], [[Hal and Jim McElroy]], and director [[Peter Weir]], which was hailed as initiating the [[Australian New Wave|revival of Australian cinema]]. A re-printing of the novel in 1975 by [[Penguin Books]] in Australia sold over 350,000 copies, making it Penguin Australia's best-selling novel to date (second, overall, only to [[Albert Facey]]'s autobiography, ''[[A Fortunate Life]]''{{sfn|Gleeson-White|2011|p=151}}).

===Later life and death===
In 1969, Lindsay suffered severe injuries in a [[car accident]] and she required months of convalescence.{{Sfn|O'Neill|2009|p=51}} Daryl Lindsay died on [[Christmas Day]] 1976.{{Sfn|O'Neill|2009|p=52}} Lady Lindsay's later years were spent invested in visual arts, with frequent visits to the [[Lyceum Club (Australia)|Lyceum Club]] in Melbourne, and to the [[McLellan Galleries|McClelland Gallery]] in Langwarrin, where she was involved in the local art community. She painted several works in her later years, and she was lauded by the art critic, [[Alan McLeod McCulloch|Alan McCulloch]].<ref name="oneill"/>

In 1972, she reunited with [[Maie Casey, Baroness Casey|Lady Maie Casey]] and held an art exhibition at the McLelland in Langwarrin. Artist [[Rick Amor]] and his children, who had lived in a cottage of Lindsay's property, led her to resurrect an unpublished [[children's book]] she had written, titled ''[[Syd Sixpence]]'', which she published in 1982.{{sfn|Arnold|Hay|2008|p=195}} Amor supplied illustrations for the book, which tells the story of Syd, an [[anthropomorphic]] [[Sixpence (Australian)|sixpence]] coin's adventures on the ocean floor. Lindsay also worked on another novel, entitled ''Love at the Billabong'', which was left unfinished.{{Sfn|O'Neill|2009|p=52}}

Lindsay died of [[stomach cancer]] at Peninsula Private Hospital in [[Frankston, Victoria|Frankston]], Melbourne on 23 December 1984, aged 88.{{Sfn|O'Neill|2009|p=54}} She was cremated, and her ashes are interred at Creswick Cemetery in Creswick, [[Shire of Hepburn]] in Victoria, Australia. As the Lindsays had no children, their Mulberry Hill home in [[Langwarrin South, Victoria]] was donated at her wishes to the National Trust upon her death.<ref name=mh/> The Mulberry Hill estate is open to the public for self-guided tours, and contains both Joan and Daryl Lindsay's original artwork and personal possessions.<ref name=mh>{{cite web|url=https://www.nationaltrust.org.au/places/mulberry-hill/|work=Australian National Trust|title=Mulberry Hill: Home of Sir Daryl (artist) & Lady Joan (author) Lindsay|access-date=29 November 2016}}</ref>

Lindsay's visual artwork has been exhibited posthumously as part of the National Women's Art Exhibition in Australia.<ref name="da"/>

In 2025, foremost Australian biographer, Brenda Niall published Lindsay's biography, ''Joan Lindsay. The hidden life of the woman who wrote'' Picnic at Hanging Rock.