The Secret of Hanging Rock

Joan Lindsay's classic novel Picnic At Hanging Rock is a subtle blend of mysterious and sinister events set in a period of Australian social life drawn with loving nostalgia. The final chapter of the novel was removed at the request of her publishers, creating a mystery to which thousands have begged to know the solution. The missing chapter reveals what did happen to the schoolgirls who vanished from Hanging Rock after a St Valentines Day picnic in 1900. WITH COMMENTARIES BY JOHN TAYLOR, YVONNE ROUSSEAU Here we find answers of a sort to the mystery at the heart of Picnic at Hanging Rock. We discover why, a week after she went missing, Irma Leopold, the heiress with bouncing black curls, is found with bloodied fingers but "perfectly clean" bare feet that are "in no way scratched or bruised." We see the manifestation of Lindsay's obsession with time - it is said that she couldn't wear a watch because they always stopped, as they do in the book. We see Miranda and Marion disappear. We see corsets hanging in midair. We see an ending as uncanny as Lindsay implies throughout Picnic at Hanging Rock. - Rony Ash, Literary Hub