#67 in Horror
The Hellbound Heart
- 176
- Pages
- about 3 h
- Reading time
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Our view
“The Hellbound Heart” is a lean, vicious horror novella about a puzzle box and beings for whom pain and pleasure are the same thing. Barker’s descriptions are vivid and unpleasant by design, and readers who know the film adaptation tend to prefer the book. It is nasty enough that some admire the writing without enjoying the experience. Short enough for one evening, it needs a strong stomach.
The view of the BookRank editors, written from readers’ ratings and comments. It does not affect the score or the book’s place in a ranking.
About the book
The Hellbound Heart is a horror novella by the British writer Clive Barker, first published in November 1986 by Dark Harvest in the third volume of its Night Visions anthology series. The story features a hedonist criminal acquiring a mystical puzzle box, the LeMarchand Configuration, which can be used to summon the Cenobites, demonic beings who do not distinguish between pain and pleasure. He escapes the Cenobites and, with help, resorts to murder to restore himself to full life. Later on, the puzzle box is found by another.
Where the score comes from
The sources average 7.8 across 313 ratings — not yet many, so the reader vote carries 68% of the weight and the rest pulls toward the Horror average of 7.5. That is how 7.7 comes out.
| Source | Average | Ratings | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open Library | 6.9 | 20 | 6% |
| Hardcover | 7.9 | 293 | 94% |
Frequently asked
How long is The Hellbound Heart?
It has 176 pages — shorter than 91% of the ranked books in Horror.
In this book
Themes this book shares with others — each leads to the best books on it.
If you liked this
Same shelf — Horror — with scores between 7.7 and 7.8, closest to this book.
