What was the name of Charles Dickens's pet raven? Grip. Dickens’s pet raven was named Grip, a talking bird that lived with his family in London and later became a character in Barnaby Rudge.
Grip was known for repeating phrases, stealing or burying objects, and biting people and animals in the Dickens household. After she died in 1841, possibly from lead poisoning after eating white paint, Dickens had her body preserved and mounted. He later acquired other ravens and gave them the same name.
Grip’s literary importance extended beyond Dickens. Edgar Allan Poe admired the raven in Barnaby Rudge, and Grip is widely considered an influence on Poe’s 1845 poem “The Raven.” The real bird therefore connects two major nineteenth-century writers.
The names Edgar, Quoth, and Poe are tempting because of the bird’s association with Poe, but they are not Dickens’s pet’s name. “Quoth” comes from Poe’s famous refrain, “Quoth the Raven, ‘Nevermore.’” The preserved Grip is now held by the Free Library of Philadelphia.