Grip

I've never read Barnaby Rudge by Charles Dickens (1812-1870), which is about a simple young man whose life is put in jeopardy when he gets caught up in the mayhem of the Gordon riots and the mystery of an unsolved murder. In the novel, the title character is devoted to his talkative raven, Grip, and The Mirror suggests that the plot can be condensed into a tweet as follows:

"Mystery murder: Essex nutter with a pet raven conned into rioting in London, dodgy MPs, couple of hangings, murder solved. Lovers wed. #Aah!"

But the bird in the fictionalized book was quite real - and important to literary history. Grip was the 1st of a series of 3 pet ravens belonging to the Dickens family (see illustration here).
The bird died in 1841 - possibly from eating lead chips that had been scraped off a wall that was being repainted - and prompted the inconsolable author to describe Grip's final hours to his friends:

“On the clock striking twelve he appeared slightly agitated, but he soon recovered, walked twice or thrice along the coach house, stopped to bark, staggered, exclaimed “Halloa old girl! (his favorite expression) and died. The children seem rather glad of it. He bit their ankles but that was play. He behaved throughout with a decent fortitude, equanimity, and self-possession, which cannot be too much admired.”

The living animal and its literary counterpart had much in common in addition to talking and popping
champagne corks, as Dickens described in print:

"Grip was by no means an idle or unprofitable member of the humble household. Partly by dint of Barnaby's tuition, and partly by pursuing a species of self instruction common to his tribe, and exerting his powers of observation to the utmost, he had acquired a degree of sagacity which rendered him famous for miles round. His conversational powers and surprising performances were the universal theme: and as many persons came to see the wonderful raven, and none left his exertions unrewarded - when he condescended to exhibit, which was not always, for genius is capricious - his earnings formed an important item in the common stock. Indeed the bird himself appeared to know his value well; for though he was perfectly free and unrestrained in the presence of Barnaby and his mother, he maintained in public an amazing gravity, and never stooped to any other gratuitous performances than biting the ankles of vagabond boys (an exercise in which he much delighted) killing a fowl or two occasionally, and swallowing the dinners of various neighbouring dogs, of whom the boldest held him in great awe and dread."

Those words were read by Edgar Allan Poe (1809-49), who was working as a literary critic at the time. Poe reviewed the serialized version of Barnaby Rudge for Graham’s Magazine upon its publication in 1841. Shortly thereafter, Grip took on another identity: the bird in Poe's most famous poem (hear it read by Christopher Walken here). “That’s because Grip is ‘The Raven,’ ” says Edward G. Pettit, author of the forthcoming Edgar Allan Poe in Philadelphia. The poem, published in 1845, reads in part:

"But the Raven still beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,
Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird, and bust and door;
Then, upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking
Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore —
What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore
Meant in croaking 'Nevermore.'"
It is the bird's connection to Poe* that brings me to the point of this post: Grip is still with us (emphasis on still). When he died, Dickens had him mounted. When Dickens died, Grip was sold at auction and eventually made its way into the Poe collection of Col. Richard A. Gimbel (1898-1970) of Philadelphia. After Gimbel's death, his collection - including the only known copy of "The Raven" in Poe's hand, manuscripts of Annabel Lee and Murders in the Rue Morgue, and first editions of all of Poe's works - was donated to Philadelphia's Free Library. The historic bird (2nd image) is the centerpiece of an exhibit celebrating the 200th anniversary of Dickens' birth. He'll be on display weekdays for the next year if you want to have a look!

*My own connection to Poe is in the form of a Halloween costume (photo in slideshow below) and the travels of the taxidermied bird I sent to my friend George the following Christmas (read about it here).

1st image) Barnaby Rudge in Newgate Prison as depicted in J.A. Hammerton's The Dickens Picture-Book (London: Educational Book Co., 1904) by Halbot K. Browne, who illustrated the works of Charles Dickens under the pseudonym "Phiz." Image scanned by Philip V. Allingham (other illustrations of Rudge here). 2nd image) "Grip," the preserved pet raven that belonged to the Dickens family, now on display in the rare-book section of the Free Library of Philadelphia. The photograph appears in the Daily Mail (another photo with Dickens' great-great-grandson here).

Marginalia

Librarians hate it, cultural historians love it - under certain circumstances:

mar·gi·na·li·a pl.n. Notes in the margin or margins of a book. [1832, from L. marginalia, neuter plural of marginalis "marginal," from marginis].

The word was coined by English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834), who wrote notes in almost every book he read - marginalia that has been collected in several volumes of its own. Other famous marginalia includes notes written by French philosopher Voltaire (1694-1778) while in prison, a statement written by English aristocrat Sir Walter Raleigh (1552-1618) before his execution, and writings by English poet John Bethune (1801-1851), who could not afford paper. Many consider a formula by French mathematician Pierre de Fermat (1601-1665) to be the most important margin note, and that of American novelist Sylvia Plath (1932-1963) on her copy of The Great Gatsby among the most poignant. Marginalia can also refer to the drawings in medieval illuminated manuscripts, a topic on the blog Got Medieval. But more recent scribbles are the topic of this blog post, "Always Bring a Pencil." Good advice, as is that of Edgar Allen Poe (1809-1849), who writes the following in his essay "Marginalia":

"In getting my books, I have been always solicitous of an ample margin; this not so much through any love of the thing itself, however agreeable, as for the facility it affords me of pencilling suggested thoughts, agreements, and differences of opinion, or brief critical comments in general."

In deference to librarians, just make sure the books are yours.

Custom of the sea

The so-called "custom of the sea" was the understanding that, in dire circumstances, sailors would be forgiven for resorting to survivor cannibalism. There were several true accounts for Edgar Allan Poe to draw on for his fictional novel, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, first published in magazine form in 1837. His story describes the desperation of three castaways who reach the point of drawing straws to see who would be sacrificed to save the others from starvation. Ship's mate Richard Parker draws the short straw. Fifty years later, in 1884, fact mirrored fiction. Two survivors of the yacht Mignonette were brought up on charges, and eventually sentenced to death, for killing and cannibalizing their shipmate. The case, Regina v. Dudley and Stephens, was intended to set an example and put an end to this barbarous tradition. The name of the cannibalized shipmate: Richard Parker.

Kutna Hora Ossuary

I'm not certain who put me in touch with George Higham, but it has been many years since then and I now own 5 of his sculptures, including the box depicted below. The photo above shows George in his studio where he has produced a stop-motion film based on Edgar Allan Poe and a tarot deck (see his website for all the gory details). Speaking of which, during the day George x-rays the dead at the morgue. My first question to him was whether his skeletal sculptures were done from still lifes and he said he had seen enough bones and bodies to conjure them easily out of his head. I told him I was researching Skulls and Skeletons and asked if he was aware of the ossuary in Sedlec, Czech Republic, commonly referred to as Kutna Hora. Not only had he heard of it, he was heading there on vacation the following month! He photographed the church and its profusion of skeletal ornaments and kindly let me reproduce them in my book. After I dressed as Poe for Halloween (see slideshow below), I decided that the actual crow I had prepared by a local taxidermist was going to George for Christmas (it loomed in the museum and was not to be a part of the permanent collection). I hauled the bird and a tiny crystal tree ornament to a well-known pack-and-ship store. The crow (it is illegal to kill an actual raven) was destined for George's studio in New York and the ornament was intended for Aunt Judy in Florida. Guess who got the bird?