To Hell in a Handcart is a controversial dystopia

Utopian and dystopian fiction

The utopia and its offshoot, the dystopia, are genres of literature that explore social and political structures. Utopian fiction is the creation of an ideal world, or utopia, as the setting for a novel. Dystopian fiction is the opposite: creation of a nightmare world, or dystopia...

n novel

Novel

A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....

 by English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 journalist Richard Littlejohn

Richard Littlejohn

Richard William Littlejohn is an English author, broadcaster and journalist. He is noted for his Conservative views and currently writes a twice-weekly column for the Daily Mail....

.

After using self defence against a man who had broken into his home, ex-police officer Mickey French finds himself arrested for murder and faced with national notoriety, as several left wing figures seek to destroy him through their use of politically correct jargon and liberal attitudes.

Reception

The book was almost universally panned by critics, many of whom derided it as being conservatively biased, sexist

Sexism

Sexism, also known as gender discrimination or sex discrimination, is the application of the belief or attitude that there are characteristics implicit to one's gender that indirectly affect one's abilities in unrelated areas...

, racist

Racism

Racism is the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination. In the modern English language, the term "racism" is used predominantly as a pejorative epithet. It is applied especially to the practice or advocacy of racial discrimination of a pernicious nature...

 and homophobic

Homophobia

Homophobia is a term used to refer to a range of negative attitudes and feelings towards lesbian, gay and in some cases bisexual, transgender people and behavior, although these are usually covered under other terms such as biphobia and transphobia. Definitions refer to irrational fear, with the...

. Journalist David Aaronovitch

David Aaronovitch

David Aaronovitch is a British author, broadcaster, and journalist. He is a regular columnist for The Times, and author of Paddling to Jerusalem: An Aquatic Tour of Our Small Country and Voodoo Histories: the role of Conspiracy Theory in Modern History...

 branded the work a "400-page recruiting pamphlet for the BNP". However, writers Frederick Forsyth

Frederick Forsyth

Frederick Forsyth, CBE is an English author and occasional political commentator. He is best known for thrillers such as The Day of the Jackal, The Odessa File, The Fourth Protocol, The Dogs of War, The Devil's Alternative, The Fist of God, Icon, The Veteran, Avenger, The Afghan and The Cobra.-...

 and Andrew Roberts

Andrew Roberts

Andrew Roberts is an English historian and journalist.-Background:Roberts was born in London, England, the son of Simon from Cobham, Surrey, and Katie Roberts...

praised Littlejohn's debut, in particular its right wing sentiments.

To Hell in a Handcart was also poorly received by much of the reading public and has since gone out of print.