page_title: Hanging Rock, Victoria
section_title: Treatments in novel and film
hierarchical_section_title: Hanging Rock, Victoria / Treatments in novel and film
context_page_description: Hanging Rock is a distinctive geological formation in central Victoria, Australia. A former volcano, it lies 718m above sea level on the plain between the two small townships of Newham and Hesket, approximately 70 km north-west of Melbourne and a few kilometres north of Mount Macedon.
  In the middle of the 19th century, the traditional occupants of the place – tribes of the Dja Dja Wurrung, Woi Wurrung and Taungurung – were forced from it. They had been its occupants for, potentially, thousands of years and, colonisation notwithstanding, have continued to maintain cultural and spiritual connections with the place.
  To the settler colonialist society, Hanging Rock became a place for recreation and tourism. It came alternately under private, government, and mixed public-private control.
  In the late 20th century, the area became very widely known as the setting of Joan Lindsay's novel Picnic at Hanging Rock.
context_section_description: Hanging Rock was the inspiration and setting for the novel Picnic at Hanging Rock, written by Joan Lindsay and published in 1967. The novel dealt with the disappearance of a number of schoolgirls during a visit to the site. Their disappearance was explained in the final chapter, but Lindsay deleted this chapter at the suggestion of her editor, thinking the mystery was greater without it.
  The novel inspired the film Picnic at Hanging Rock, made in 1975 and directed by Peter Weir. The success of the film was responsible for a substantial increase in visits to the rock and a renewal of interest in the novel. Yvonne Rousseau wrote a book called The Murders at Hanging Rock, published in 1980, which examined possible explanations for the disappearance of the girls.
  The deleted final chapter of the novel was finally published in 1987 after the death of Joan Lindsay.  Lindsay had given the copyright for the last chapter to her literary agent John Taylor on the understanding he would only publish it after her death.  It was titled The Secret of Hanging Rock.
caption: William Ford, At the Hanging Rock, 1875, National Gallery of Victoria
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