Image of Japanese haiku poet Matsuo Bashō.

Matsuo Basho

(1644 - 1694)

Carl Sagan

(1934 - 1996)

Portrait of English physicist and mathematician Isaac Newton.

Isaac Newton

(1643 - 1727)

American diplomat, scholar, and conservationist George Perkins Marsh.

George Perkins Marsh

(1801 - 1882)

Portrait bust of presumed author of the Iliad and the Odyssey Homer.

Homer

(c. 800 BC - 725 BC)

German writer and statesman Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

(1749 - 1832)

Man with a gray goatee wearing a checked shirt standing outdoors

Eric Schlosser

Bill McKibben

Lewis Lapham at his desk

Lewis H. Lapham

Oil painting portrair Michel de Montaigne in red robes and white collar

Michel de Montaigne

(1533 - 1592)

British author Aldous Huxley.

Aldous Huxley

(1894 - 1963)

Black and white photograph of Polish-born English writer Joseph Conrad.

Joseph Conrad

(1857 - 1924)

Engraving of a bust of Lucretius.

Lucretius

(c. 95 BC - c. 50 BC)

Black and white photograph of Emily Dickinson sitting next to a desk.

Emily Dickinson

(1830 - 1886)

English poet and satirist Alexander Pope.

Alexander Pope

(1688 - 1744)

Vitruvius

(c. 80 BC - 15 BC)

Sculpture bust of Greek historian Herodotus.

Herodotus

(c. 484 BC - c. 425 BC)

Charles Bowden

(1945 - 2014)

Paul Gauguin

(1848 - 1903)

Engraving of Roman author and administrator Pliny the Younger.

Pliny the Younger

(61 - 112)

Photograph of American writer and naturalist Henry Beston.

Henry Beston

(1888 - 1968)

Italian artist, engineer, and scientist Leonardo da Vinci.

Leonardo da Vinci

(1452 - 1519)

American author Evan S. Connell.

Evan S. Connell

(1924 - 2013)

Photograph of English art critic, novelist, and painter John Berger.

John Berger

(1926 - 2017)

American poet, journalist, and essayist Walt Whitman.

Walt Whitman

(1819 - 1892)

Andrew Jackson

(1767 - 1845)

Jonathan Swift

Jonathan Swift

(1667 - 1745)

Photograph of Native American author and educator Luther Standing Bear.

Luther Standing Bear

(1868 - 1939)

Smiling man with thin hair sticking out at a podium

James D. Watson

Curtis White

Image of English naturalist Charles Darwin.

Charles Darwin

(1809 - 1882)

Al Gore

Engraving of William Shakespeare from the first folio edition.

William Shakespeare

(1564 - 1616)

Jane Jacobs

(1916 - 2006)

Loren Eiseley

(1907 - 1977)

Engraving of Pliny the Elder.

Pliny the Elder

(23 - 79)

Photograph of American poet Countee Cullen.

Countee Cullen

(1903 - 1946)

Black and white photograph of American writer and exponent of Transcendentalism Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

(1803 - 1882)

Photograph of American novelist Jack London.

Jack London

(1876 - 1916)

Wang Wei

(701 - 761)

Portrait of third president of the United States Thomas Jefferson.

Thomas Jefferson

(1743 - 1826)

Black and white photograph of American novelist John Steinbeck.

John Steinbeck

(1902 - 1968)

Painted portrait of English poet John Milton.

John Milton

(1608 - 1674)

Photograph of American environmentalist Aldo Leopold.

Aldo Leopold

(1887 - 1948)

American poet Anne Bradstreet.

Anne Bradstreet

(c. 1612 - 1672)

Black and white photograph of E. B. White sitting at his typewriter with his dachshund.

E.B. White

(1899 - 1985)

Black and white photograph of former President of the United States Theodore Roosevelt.

Theodore Roosevelt

(1858 - 1919)

Edward Abbey

(1927 - 1989)

John D. Rockefeller Jr.

(1874 - 1960)

Italian poet Dante Alighieri.

Dante Alighieri

(1265 - 1321)

Jamaica Kincaid

Paracelsus

(1493 - 1541)

Image of medieval traveler Sir John Mandeville.

John Mandeville

(c. 1300 - 1371)

French man of letters Denis Diderot.

Denis Diderot

(1713 - 1784)

Painting of Greek philosopher Heraclitus weeping over a globe.

Heraclitus

(c. 540 BC - c. 480 BC)

Color photograph of writer and editor Garret Keizer.

Garret Keizer

English poet Edmund Spenser.

Edmund Spenser

(1552 - 1599)

British author Mary Shelley.

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

(1797 - 1851)

Chris Rose

Photograph of American biologist Edward O. Wilson.

Edward O. Wilson

Robinson Jeffers

(1887 - 1962)

Black and white engraving of Roman poet Ovid in profile.

Ovid

(43 BC - c. 17)

Photograph of British writer and journalist Simon Winchester.

Simon Winchester

Giovanni Pico Della Mirandola

(1463 - 1494)

Frederick Turner

Theocritus

(c. 300 BC - c. 260 BC)

Black and white photograph of Friedrich Nietzsche with a huge mustache.

Friedrich Nietzsche

(1844 - 1900)

Black and white photograph of Irish poet and writer W. B. Yeats.

W.B. Yeats

(1865 - 1939)

Lewis Thomas

(1913 - 1993)

Steven Stoll

D. Graham Burnett

Black and white image of American writer Herman Melville.

Herman Melville

(1819 - 1891)

At the age of seventeen, Hawthorne mused to his mother about the possibility of “relying for support upon my pen.”

Nathaniel Hawthorne

(1804 - 1864)

Jules Verne

Jules Verne

(1828 - 1905)

Painted portrait of German naturalist and explorer Alexander von Humboldt.

Alexander von Humboldt

(1769 - 1859)

John Muir

(1838 - 1914)

Photograph of Rachel Carson

Rachel Carson

(1907 - 1964)

Pretty-shield

(1856 - 1944)

Novelist and psychiatrist Daniel Mason.

Daniel Mason

Nicholas Barbon

(c. 1640 - 1698)

Black and white photograph of a young H.G. Wells with a mustache.

H.G. Wells

(1866 - 1946)

Color photograph of American writer Annie Dillard.

Annie Dillard

Portrait bust of Roman poet Virgil.

Virgil

(70 BC - 19 BC)

English economist and demographer Thomas Malthus.

Thomas Malthus

(1766 - 1834)

Portrait of Francis Bacon in sixteenth-century armor.

Francis Bacon

(1561 - 1626)

Depiction of Plymouth colony governor William Bradford.

William Bradford

(1590 - 1657)

Painted portrait of French naturalist Georges-Louis Leclerc, count de Buffon.

Georges-Louis Leclerc, count de Buffon

(1707 - 1788)

Frederick Jackson Turner

(1861 - 1932)

Photograph of journalist, author, and professor Michael Pollan.

Michael Pollan

Edward Hoagland

Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, and writer Marcus Tullius Cicero.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

(106 BC - 43 BC)

William Blake

(1757 - 1827)

Painting of a bearded man with dark eyes wearing a white ruff

John Winthrop

(1588 - 1649)

Black and white photograph of Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud with cigar.

Sigmund Freud

(1856 - 1949)

Black and white photograph of former chancellor and Führer of Germany Adolf Hitler.

Adolf Hitler

(1889 - 1945)

David Quammen

Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés.

Hernán Cortés

(1485 - 1547)

Painting of William Wordsworth.

William Wordsworth

(1770 - 1850)

French-American author J. Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur.

J. Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur

(1735 - 1813)

American landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted.

Frederick Law Olmsted

(1822 - 1903)

American physicist Richard Feynman.

Richard Feynman

(1918 - 1988)

Immanuel Kant

(1724 - 1804)

Portrait of Swiss-born philosopher, writer, and political theorist Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

(1712 - 1778)

Henry David Thoreau

Henry David Thoreau

(1817 - 1862)

Alain de Lille

(c. 1128 - 1202)

Novalis

(1772 - 1801)