The Hellbound Heart

Clive Barker, a British writer, first published the horror novella The Hellbound Heart in 1986 in an anthology of his work. It introduced the Cenobites, the order of beings who draw no line between pleasure and pain, and it became the basis of the 1987 film Hellraiser, which Barker wrote and directed.

The figure at the centre is Frank Cotton, a man who has chased every sensation he can find and has finally run out of them. He comes into possession of a puzzle box, the LeMarchand Configuration, which he believes will open a door for him onto something he has not yet felt.

Solving the box summons the Cenobites, and what they offer is not what Frank wanted. The novella turns on the people around him, his brother Rory, Rory's wife Julia and their friend Kirsty, as the consequences of that bargain spill out of the room where it was struck.

The story is short and ends on a bleak note, and it is the source of the imagery the later Hellraiser films built on. One of its Cenobites, left unnamed in the novella, became the best-known figure of the franchise.