To hell in a handbasket

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"Going to hell in a handbasket", "going to hell in a handcart", "going to hell in a handbag" or '"sending something to hell in a handbasket" &c. are variations on an American alliterative locution of unclear origin, which describes a situation headed for disaster without effort or in great haste.

Its first use recorded in the Oxford English Dictionary is in a historical work of 1865 by I. Windslow Ayer entitled The Great North-Western Conspiracy in All Its Startling Details, with the quote: "Thousands of our best men were prisoners in Camp Douglas, and if once at liberty would ‘send abolitionists to hell in a hand basket.'"

It has also appeared in the title of several published works and other media:

• "To Hell in a Handbasket" is the name of humorist H. Allen Smith's 1962 autobiography.
• "Hell in a Handbasket" was the title of a 1998 Star Trek comic book.
• Hell in a Handbasket is the title of a 2006 book (ISBN 1585424587) by American counterculture cartoonist Tom Tomorrow, who authors a nationally syndicated cartoon strip This Modern World.
• "Hell in a handbasket" was the name of an undescribed con requiring a trained cat referenced in the 2004 film, Ocean's Twelve.
• "Hell in a handbasket" is a song from Voltaire's Ooky Spooky album.