Charles Dickens kept his dead raven in his study

A closer look

Dickens had a flair for the dramatic, both in his writing and his horrifying interior decor. He had a beloved pet raven named Grip who learned to mimic human speech. When the bird eventually died from eating lead paint chips, Dickens was so distraught that he had the corpse taxidermied and mounted it in his study. The dead bird literally watched him write his classic novels and later inspired Edgar Allan Poe's most famous poem.