Picnic At Hanging Rock

A classic of Australian literature, Picnic at Hanging Rock remains an enduring, haunting mystery of lost innocence and simmering intrigue. The source of Peter Weir’s iconic 1975 film, the novel is now the inspiration for a major new BBC television series starring Natalie Dormer.

It was a cloudless summer day in the year nineteen hundred. Everyone at Appleyard College for Young Ladies agreed it was just right for a picnic at Hanging Rock. After lunch, a group of three of the girls climbed into the blaze of the afternoon sun, pressing on through the scrub into the shadows of Hanging Rock. Further, higher, till at last they disappeared. They never returned…

A cult success from its publication in 1965, Picnic at Hanging Rock has become part of Australian folklore, prompting endless speculation about the possible truth behind the fiction. Whether the story is fact or fiction remains something the reader must decide for themselves.