An expanded version of one of the several solutions to the Mad Hatter’s riddle about how a raven is like a writing desk: Poe and Dickens wrote on both.
It’s a neat literary anecdote, though, as more than one raven was involved, Singer has to fudge it a bit. It seems that Charles Dickens kept a succession of pesky ravens as pets, all named Grip. The first he turned into a character in Barnaby Rudge and then had stuffed and mounted when it died. The second was incorporated into a painting of the author’s children that he took with him on an American tour—where Poe saw it in Philadelphia and, being a struggling writer who, as the narrative puts it, “needed a hit,” penned a certain renowned poem. The rest is history. Adding the occasional inscribed Nevermore to tempt listeners to chime in, Fotheringham outfits the two gently caricatured White men and several racially diverse gaggles of laughing children in period clothing and sends multiple ravens, all bearing the same cocky smile, fluttering through the illustrations. Along with added-value closing notes on the ravens of the Tower of London (many named Gripp) and the corvid clan in general, this genial account closes the circle by following Grip I down the years to its current, permanent home…in Philadelphia. It seems only right. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Just a footnote—but worth treasuring for its very unlikeliness.
(bibliography, web sites) (Informational picture book. 8-10)