'This grim, ungainly, ghastly, bird': Dickens' pet raven which inspired Edgar Allan Poe's most haunting poem goes on display



Each line of Edgar Allan Poe's The Raven still has the power to send a chill down the spine.

Now Charles Dickens' pet raven called Grip - the little known, real-life inspiration behind one of literature's most terrifying poems - has been has been put on display to commemorate the author's 200th birthday.



The bird, which Dickens has a taxidermist preserve, has been given pride of place in a new exhibition in Philadelphia's public library.

'Fiery eyes': Inspiration for Edgar Allan Poe's haunting poem The Raven, which appears in the tale as 'a stately raven of the saintly days of yore' is now on display



The raven appeared as a minor character in Dickens' book Barnaby Rudge, which Poe reviewed and criticised for the bird's small role.

Four years later, in 1845, he penned his immortal and haunting poem The Raven.

It told of a talking raven visiting a distraught man whose lover had just died, arriving 'as of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door'. The paragraphs then trace the man's slow descent into madness.

THE RAVEN'S MOST HAUNTING LINES:

...'While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,

As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door...

...'Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter,

In there stepped a stately raven of the saintly days of yore....

`Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!' I shrieked upstarting -

`Get thee back into the tempest and the Night's Plutonian shore!

Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!

Leave my loneliness unbroken! - quit the bust above my door!

Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!'

Quoth the raven, `Nevermore.'



And the raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting

On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;

And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming,

And the lamp-light o'er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;

And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor

Shall be lifted - nevermore!

The carefully preserved and stuffed raven is one of the more unusual items in the Philadelphia library's valuable Dickens collection.



More than 1,200 letters alone form part of two major collections of Dickensiana bequeathed by a couple of local benefactors to the library which is celebrating the author's 200th birthday.



Library director Siobhan Reardon said: ‘It was the ideal opportunity to share our literary treasures with the community and celebrate the fact that Dickens' clever characters and engaging plotlines transcend time and are as relevant today as they were when he created them.’

Among the items on view in the rare book department are first editions of his novels and original artwork for the tales; dozens of letters to colleagues; the desk where he left unfinished his 15th book,



The Mystery of Edwin Drood; and an 1846 manuscript of the Children's New Testament - Dickens' own version of the life of Jesus, which he read to his children each Christmas.



The library's yearlong celebration also includes regular book discussions and readings by a Dickens impersonator, who won the role through an ‘American Idol’-style contest.

Dickens first visited Philadelphia in 1842 and received a rapturous welcome, shaking hands with fans for hours in a hotel lobby.



When he returned in 1868, people camped out for tickets to his readings and scalpers commanded high prices for the sold-out performances, according to research by the Philadelphia chapter of the Dickens Fellowship.



His work remains popular today because Dickens is a great storyteller who uses energetic language to create unforgettable characters, said John O. Jordan, a literature professor who directs the Dickens Project at the University of California at Santa Cruz.



‘Dickens writes about important social issues that are still nagging at us today - poverty, inequality in wealth, the abuse of children, issues of social class, aspiration to move beyond the station into which you were born, and the problems that arise from that,’ Mr Jordan said.