Product Description

From his Books of Blood to The Damnation Game, Weaveworld, and The Great and Secret Show, to scores of short stories, bestselling novels, and now major motion pictures, no one comes close to the vivid imagination and unique terrors provided by Clive Barker.

The Hellbound Heart is one of his best, a nerve-shattering novella about the human heart and all the great terrors and ecstasies within its endless domain. It is about greed and love, lovelessness and despair, desire and death, life and captivity, bells and blood. It is one of the most dead-frightening stories you are likely to ever read.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #63112 in Books
• Published on: 1991-11-01
• Released on: 1991-11-15
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 176 pages

Amazon.com
Clive Barker is widely acknowledged as the master of nerve-shattering horror. The Hellbound Heart is one of his best, one of the most dead-frightening stories you are likely to ever read, a story of the human heart and all the great terrors and ecstasies within.

Publishers Weekly
"Mesmerizing invention."

Kirkus Reviews
"[A] dazzling metaphysical epic-adventure...an astonishing feat of imagination...Barker's best yet."

Customer Reviews

Can you put the puzzle box down?
I have been a fan of Clive Barker since reading Imagica a couple years ago. Barker can write some truly imaginative books. He is one of the authors that breaks the mold of our commercial carbon copy writing industry. I knew that if I was going to ever see myself a fan of his works I had to read Hellbound Heart. This is the book that started the whole Hellraiser movie series. If you ever saw the movies you know how hard it is to forget `pinhead'. First and foremost you don't have a clear description of any Cenobite that reflects the pinhead character except for the reference to `the engineer'. With that said don't buy this book just for pinhead, you'll miss the point. The book is very short (between 150-180pg depending on your edition) so reading it in a single sitting is not hard to do. It took me two days to read it. This book was amazing! The way Clive Barker describes the human heart with its lust and desires Often the heart is drawn despite the fact that what you may desire can harm your soul (or torture it) is the underlying theme that makes this story so powerful. The author also has a great way of describing the atmosphere. There is a paragraph at the start of one of the chapters that describes the way seasons over take each other with a violent submission that is similar to the submission patterns of the characters. This is a great classic and should be read by any horror fan.
A great short story I give it 5 of 5 stars!

Books are always better than the movies
I remember watching the 1st Hellraiser for the very first time not long ago. Now to many of you that seems kind of strange, but I'm only 21 and so I had no clue who Clive Barker was or what this story was all about.

After watching the movie I wasn't all that impressed. But I remember noticing that the film was based on a book called The Hellbound Heart, so I went and bought the book and was surprised to see it's small size. I glanced through the first couple of pages and found myself immediately hooked. I couldn't believe how clean and elicit the prose were in this novella. I couldn't stop reading it.

What I learned while reading this novella was this: It's true when they say that books are better than movies (I truly believe that!). This book is not only, at times, sickening to the stomach because of the powerful impact of imagery, causing some of the most horrifying moments in any story that I have ever read, but also pleasing to a reader's eye, because the writing style is just remarkable!

Barker has become one of my favorite writers. He's witty and descriptive; he's clever and dark; he's all around a great writer!

If you get a chance, or just want something entertaining to read that will also make your stomach cringe, grab this novella and read it. You won't regret it.

Hellbound is Heavensent
The Hellbound Heart: A NovelI never thought that I would be able to get a new copy of this book.To sum it all up ,it is better than the movie it inspired (Hellraiser)