The earliest printed form I found is from 1682 in Weekly Pacquet of Advice from Rome: or, The History of Popery , where the phrase appears as “the Devil fetch me to Hell in a Hand basket”. That makes the expression much older than the 19th-century examples often quoted.

What that means

  • The core wording shows up in print by 1682.
  • Later 19th-century uses helped popularize the modern “going to hell in a handbasket” form.
  • Some sources also point to a related 1841 variant, “ride to hell in a hand-cart,” which shows the same idea but not the exact phrase.

Why there’s confusion

A lot of people connect the phrase to guillotines or the French Revolution, but that explanation runs into a timeline problem: guillotines were invented in the 18th century, while the phrase is already in print in the 17th. So the “handbasket” wording clearly predates that theory.

Bottom line

If you mean the first appearance in print of the phrase itself , the best- documented answer is 1682.