The story
Charles Dickens kept a real pet raven named Grip and wrote her into his 1841 novel Barnaby Rudge, where the bird croaks “Never say die, bow wow wow, keep up your spirits.” Edgar Allan Poe admired the character and met Dickens in 1842. Grip is thought to have inspired Poe’s poem “The Raven,” and she can still be seen at Philadelphia’s Free Library.