Does anyone know the origin of this phrase?

Welcome, CJ. I wouldn’t get your hopes up too high, though.

The Phrase Finder, for instance, is stumped.

I think it’s probably just a nice piece of alliteration, though there must, of course, have been an original inventor of the phrase.

BTW, although Brits are occasionally conveyed along the road marked "Hades:  No Stopping - No U-turns" in a handbasket, we more commonly, I feel, go to hell in a handcart.

Coemgenus

[url=http://www.wordorigins.org/wordorh.htm#Hell in a Handbasket]Etymologies & Word Origins:
Letter H[/url]

To hell in a handbasket simply means going to seed without effort, a handbasket being easy to carry. The term has been in use since at least 1941.

Good one, Katy!

Sitran

Some more handbasket URLS: one, two, and three.

And two examples of medieval paintings of the devil conveying the d’amne’d * to hell in a wheelbarrow/handcart, to be seen at the village churches of
Bacton
and
Yaxley
in England.

Coemgenus

* Isn’t it about time that yD got rid of its prissy linguistic censorship policy?

[quote author=Coemgenus link=board=idiom;num=1071577810;start=0#4 date=12/18/03 at 11:59:15] . . . * Isn’t it about time that yD got rid of its prissy linguistic censorship policy?

No.  It makes the reading more interesting trying to see what the faux pas the Profanity Filter has committed on phrases like "my assumtion" or "Cockney Rhyming Slang."

But really, it’s because the site is used as a resouce for schools, and there will be more than enough time in Middle School (grades 6, 7, and 8) for the Elementary School students (Grades K-6) to learn to swear llike a sailor.

Then there was the time that tamisaac caught an eyeful by quoting a message I started when someone else suggested we search out the boundries of the Filter.  Check out the Seriously funny filtering thread.  Scroll down, especially to posts number 11 and 12.

Grandpa said "Hell in a handbill" in one episode of The Simpsons, which was peculiar enough to burn into my long-term memory. Made me wonder which variation was original? What can it possibly mean? I wondered—assuming this variation wasn’t made up—if somehow the original inspiration was in reference to the existence of some sort of fundamental religious tracts and/ or act of their distribution?

BTW, I like KatyBr’s explanation. Makes sense to me now. Kind of like the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

I’ve got to share one of the best bumper stickers I’ve ever seen.

"Where are we going and why am I in this handbasket?"