Is ‘Picnic At Hanging Rock’ Based On A True Story?

Amazon’s Picnic At Hanging Rock is a super-stylized, hypnotic retelling of one of Australia’s most gripping stories. Joan Lindsay’s 1967 best-selling novel Picnic At Hanging Rock told the haunting story of the mysterious disappearance of three school girls and their teacher on a St. Valentine’s Day picnic at Hanging Rock. Only one girl returned, Irma, and the book captivated audiences with its feverish tale of female repression. In 1975, Peter Weir directed a hazy film version of the story that left audiences unsettled and future auteurs inspired.

The new Amazon miniseries stars Game of Thrones alum Natalie Dormer as the mysterious Mrs. Hester Appleyard, the headmistress of the private school the missing girls’ attended. The new Aussie adaptation of the tale plays up the horror of the story, opening with a gothic scene of “Widow Appleyard” stalking her newly bought mansion in all black. The series is theatrical, colorful, and obsessed with the pageantry of female sexuality.

Picnic At Hanging Rock is a story that feeds off mystery. Where did the girls go? Why did they vanish? What’s the deal with Mrs. Appleyard? While the new Amazon series does its best to fill in backstory, it doesn’t tackle the biggest mystery of all: Is Picnic At Hanging Rock based on a true story?

There is evidence for and against this theory, and much of it centers on the mythos of author Joan Lindsay herself.

Is Picnic At Hanging Rock Based on a True Story? What Does The Book Say?

Joan Lindsay’s 1967 novel Picnic At Hanging Rock is written as though it’s based on a true story. Many of the places listed are real places she knew as a child, and Lindsay herself liked to play coy on the matter of the story’s veracity.

Lindsay even wrote a haunting foreward that teased the story’s truthfulness:

“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.”

Lindsay’s editors maintained that the story was purely fictional. As the years went on, Lindsay herself finally said it was based on a dream she had and that it’s intended to be a mystery.

Nevertheless, there are clues that make people believe Picnic At Hanging Rock really happened.

Why Do People Still Think Picnic At Hanging Rock Was Based on a True Story?

Though the official story is that Lindsay made everything up — writing the hazy, hallucinatory novel in two weeks based on dreams she had — there’s a lot of hearsay, gossip, and stone cold evidence that the tale might be based in some truth.

Author and historian Janelle McCulloch recently wrote a book about Joan Lindsay and the rumors swirling around Picnic At Hanging Rock called Beyond the Rock: The Life of Joan Lindsay and the Mystery of Picnic At Hanging Rock. In the course of her research, McCulloch found literary and historical evidence that Lindsay may have gotten her inspiration for the tale from real life events.

The final two lines of Lindsay’s original foreward read, “For the author, who knew Mount Macedon and the Hanging Rock very well, as a child, the story is entirely true.” It was cut from the final manuscript, along with a supernatural explanation for the girls’ disappearance, but was Lindsay covering her tracks or merely holding back from employing a dramatic framing device to trick the reader into thinking it was a true story?

McCulloch’s historical research uncovered a local police gazette that told of two girls who had disappeared in the same area as Hanging Rock in the late 1800s. The girls’ descriptions match those of the missing young ladies in the novel Picnic at Hanging Rock. McCulloch says further evidence leads her to believe that “two girls were abducted” and “the girls were possibly hidden in one of the bottomless crevices of the rock.”

However, the abductions occurred before Joan Lindsay was born. In fact, Lindsay first visiting Hanging Rock as a four-year-old in 1900, the same year the book is set. And she reportedly had an experience on Hanging Rock that “profoundly affected her.”

So What Does That Mean? Did Picnic At Hanging Rock Really Happen?

As Lindsay describes it — and the Peter Weir film and Amazon television series portray it? No. However, it seems very likely that Lindsay drew on local stories and personal experiences to graft together the story. It’s probably loosely based on a tragic true story that’s been bent for dramatic effect.

McCullough also tracked down an elderly woman who went to the school the fictional Appleyard College was based on and she confirmed that back in the day, it was common knowledge that two girls had disappeared close to Hanging Rock. McCullough believes that Lindsay must have heard about these events from family members.

Anything Else?

It’s worth mentioning that when Peter Weir wanted to adapt the book for film, he was warned that he should not — under any circumstances — ask Joan Lindsay if the story was true or not. I mean, you have to ask: Why so touchy about the truth, Joan?

Picnic At Hanging Rock debuts on Prime Video tomorrow, May 25. 

Where to Stream Picnic at Hanging Rock