To hell in a handbasket

"Going to hell in a handbasket", "going to hell in a handcart", "going to hell in a handbag" and '"sending something to hell in a handbasket" 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 an historical work of 1865 by I. Windslow Ayer, alleging that Judge Morris of the Circuit Court of Illinois at an August meeting of Order of the Sons of Liberty said: "Thousands of our best men were prisoners in Camp Douglas, and if once at liberty would ‘send abolitionists to hell in a hand basket.'"^[1][2]

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 1988 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.
• Hell in a Handbasket is the title of a 2011 Meat Loaf album

References