 Lady Joan à Beckett
Lindsay (16 November 1896 – 23
December 1984) was an Australian
novelist, playwright, essayist, and
visual artist. Trained in her youth as a
painter, Lindsay published her first
literary work in 1936 at age forty under
a pseudonym, a satirical novel titled
Through Darkest Pondelayo. Her second
novel, Time Without Clocks, was published
nearly thirty years later, and was a
semi-autobiographical account of her
early married years to artist Daryl
Lindsay.
In 1967,
Lindsay published her most celebrated
work, Picnic at Hanging Rock, a
historical Gothic novel detailing the
vanishing of three schoolgirls and their
teacher at the site of a monolith during
one summer. The novel sparked critical
and public interest for its ambivalent
presentation as a true story as well as
its vague conclusion, and is widely
considered to be one of the most
important Australian novels of all time.
It was adapted into a 1975 film of the
same name.
She was
also the author of several unpublished
plays, and contributed essays, short
stories, and poetry to numerous journals
and publications throughout her career.
After the death of Lindsay's husband in
1976, she spent her time involved in the
local art community in Melbourne, and was
involved in several exhibitions. Her last
published work, Syd Sixpence (1982), was
her first and only work of children's
literature. Lindsay died of stomach
cancer in 1984, after which her home was
donated to the Australian National Trust;
the Lindsay estate now operates as a
museum with she and husband Daryl's
artwork and personal effects.
This
is the Typewriter that Joan Lindsey typed
the novel on.
(Thanks to Beky Tully-Gibbens for this
picture)
Lindsay
originally wrote an 18th
chapter that explains what happened to
the missing girls at Hanging Rock, but
decided not to publish it following
advice from her publisher. Perhaps
because the book doesn’t explain
what happened to the missing parties, the
book became a huge success. Lindsay
refused to ever tell the public what
happened to the girls and their teacher,
but readers have come up with numerous
theories about what happened. Lindsay has
peppered her novel with hints to indicate
both that the story could be real and
that it could be fake. The novel opens
with a note from the author:
"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." Joan Lindsay
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