Editing Joan Lindsay (section)

===''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}}).