caw! let's write literature!

One pet Victorian raven, two works of English-language literature. I've just learned that Dickens' pet raven "Grip" showed up as a character in Barnaby Rudge in memoriam; he'd just died, and the Dickens kids prevailed upon Dad to write him into the newest book. He must have been a pistol, as you'll see if you look at this page from the novel.
But he didn't win over Edgar Allen Poe, who in his review of the book seems to have just found the bird irritating. You know what happens when sand irritates a pearl, right? It may well have been Grip who became the perfect black pearl of Poe's great, creepy, romantic 1845 poem "The Raven." And now Grip's stuffed bod is on display in the Rare Book Department of the Philadelphia Free Library, thanks to a Poe memorabilia collector.

A very odd story, thanks to the odd and most entertaining CuriousExpeditions.org.