Clive Barker

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Clive Barker was born near Penny Lane, Liverpool in 1952. After attending junior school in that city, he entered Liverpool University to study English Literature and Philosophy. At twenty-one, Clive moved to London. There he formed a theater company to perform the plays that he was writing and worked in that medium throughout his twenties as a writer, director, and actor.

Many of these early plays contained the fantastical, erotic and horrific elements that would later become part of his literary work. They include: History of the Devil, Frankenstein in Love, Subtle Bodies, The Secret Life of Cartoons, and a play about his favorite painter, Goya, entitled Colossus. HarperPrism has put together The History of the Devil, Frankenstein In Love, and Colossus in a collection entitled Incarnations.

"I have seen the future of horror and his name is Clive Barker."
~ Stephen King

The imaginative qualities that were such a fundamental part of Clive's theatrical work found their first literary outlet in the short fiction to which he turned in his late twenties. The first published examples of these tales are Book of Blood, Volumes 1-3. They saw only modest success in the U.K., but with the publication of the book in the United States and the appearance of his first novel, The Damnation Game, he began to find favor with readers and critics alike.

Three more volumes followed, published in the U. K. as the Book of Blood, Volumes 4-6, and re titled in America as The Inhuman Condition, In the Flesh, and Cabal. By this point many of his books were finding their ways into translation, and they now appear in over a dozen languages.

In 1987, following the adaptation of two of his stories for the movies (Rawhead Rex and Transmutations, both of which he disliked), he decided to direct something himself. The result was Hellraiser, based on a novella called The Hellbound Heart. The film developed a cult following and has since spawned several lines of comic books as well as three movies sequels: Hellbound: Hellraiser 2 (directed by Tony Randal), Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth (directed by Tony Hickox) and Hellraiser: Bloodline. Subsequently, Clive adapted his short story Cabal into Nightbreed, which he also directed.

After the publication of the novels Weaveworld and The Great and Secret Show, several Barker-related publications appeared: graphic art adaptations of his short story called "Tapping the Vein" and two large format covering his art work called Clive Barker: Illustrator, Volume I and II. In 1991 the epic fantasy novel Imajica followed, then an illustrated children's fable called The Thief of Always, a line of superhero comics for Marvel called "Razorline", and a one-man art show at the Bess Cutler Gallery in New York where his work is still being displayed.

Clive has served as Executive Producer on the film Candyman (directed by Bernard Rose) which was based on his short story, "The Forbidden" and on Candyman 2: Farewell to the Flesh (directed by Bill Condon). Clive published Galilee, Everville, the sequel novel to The Great and Secret Show, Second Book of the Art, and Sacrament, a dark fantasy for all ages.

Though Clive has moved to Los Angeles and is now involved with several projects for both the large and small screen, his first love remains books. He numbers amongst his literary influences the works of Edgar Allan Poe, Ray Bradbury, Herman Melville, William Blake, William Burroughs, Arthur Machen and both the old and new testaments.

Horror Filmography

Click the image to go to Clive Barker's Official site.

"...I hope that the fiction I write will empower us to both comprehend our secret dream selves and understand the profound intimacy we share with every other human being."
~Clive Barker