Abrams Cernunnos releases the large format hardback book Clive Barker’s Dark Worlds, by Phil and Sarah Stokes. The London-based long-time friends and official archivists of Barker’s work are writers and researchers who oversee his official website, immense personal collection of manuscripts, art and more. According to Barker himself, they “have an encyclopaedic knowledge of who I am and what I’ve done [and] understand me better than almost anyone on the planet.” Clive Barker, of course, is one of the UK’s masters of horror. He is undoubtedly most known for writing The Hellbound Heart, and thereby creating the notorious character of Pinhead. He adapted this, directing himself the ground-breaking 1987 movie Hellraiser, which would spawn several sequels. However, this heavy 352-page book of quality-paper text and photos incorporates his books, films, early theatre work and fantastic macabre artwork...

This is an excellent tome which will take pride of place on any horror lover’s bookshelf. It’s particularly interesting to me, as I was fascinated by Barker’s early short story collections and novels. After an opening section on Hellraiser to whet the appetite of those who only know him from that film, we soon get enjoyable short chapters on his Books of Blood collections of short stories (check out the film Midnight Meat Train from these anthologies; a very underrated, brilliant adaptation), his first novel The Damnation Game, the bizarre fantasy Weaveworld, The Great and Secret Show, and Nightbreed (another severely overlooked movie version). This is a book from the Stokes, but also from Barker himself. It’s written from the heart which could only have originated from personal insight and knowledge. Consequently, interspersed with these many chapters on his book and film projects are sections on his background and childhood, his theatre group company, poetry and prose, his personal life and, most touchingly, fighting through a series of long illnesses.

Of course, every essence of Barker’s work is covered: Pinhead and the Hellraiser story, the early artwork of The Thief of Always, the creation of Candyman, erotic short stories, video games, comic books, the Books of Blood movies, and his resurgence into novel writing. There is so much reading here, and it’s enabling me to catch-up with what the great man has achieved in more recent years. But it’s not just the text that is proficient; this all-colour book features a plethora of photographs, sketches, and in many cases fantastic full-page representations of his surrealistic horror fantasy artwork, which you have to see to believe.

10

Ty Power