Juvenal

(c. 60 - c. 130)

Italian poet Dante Alighieri.

Dante Alighieri

(1265 - 1321)

John Updike

(1932 - 2009)

Bust of Hesiod

Hesiod

Black and white photograph of American author Edith Wharton.

Edith Wharton

(1862 - 1937)

Depiction of Greek philosopher Plato.

Plato

(c. 427 BC - c. 347 BC)

William H. Gass

(1924 - 2017)

Ihara Saikaku

(1642 - 1693)

Anaïs Nin

(1903 - 1977)

American poet Wallace Stevens.

Wallace Stevens

(1879 - 1955)

Canadian musician and author Leonard Cohen.

Leonard Cohen

(1934 - 2016)

Noga Arikha

American writer William Styron.

William Styron

(1925 - 2006)

Engraving of a bust of Lucretius.

Lucretius

(c. 95 BC - c. 50 BC)

Engraving of William Shakespeare from the first folio edition.

William Shakespeare

(1564 - 1616)

Painting of François Rabelais.

François Rabelais

(1494 - 1553)

Photograph of American novelist and writer Flannery O’Connor.

Flannery O’Connor

(1925 - 1964)

German writer and statesman Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

(1749 - 1832)

James Baldwin

(1924 - 1987)

American writer Phillip Lopate.

Phillip Lopate

Sculpture bust of Greek dramatist Euripides.

Euripides

(c. 484 BC - c. 406 BC)

black and white pencil drawing of Moliere in an ornate frame

Molière

(1622 - 1673)

Jeff Sharlet

French novelist Gustave Flaubert.

Gustave Flaubert

(1821 - 1880)

American producer, director and writer Darren Star.

Darren Star

William Rosen

Georges Bataille

(1897 - 1962)

Junot Díaz

Tertullian

(c. 160 - c. 220)

Engraving of Roman poet Horace.

Horace

(65 BC - 8 BC)

Austro-German poet Rainer Maria Rilke.

Rainer Maria Rilke

(1875 - 1926)

Ibn Hazm

(994 - 1064)

Photograph of American writer Francine Prose.

Francine Prose

French author the Marquis de Sade.

Marquis de Sade

(1740 - 1814)

Procopius

(c. 490 - c. 562)

Andrew Marvell

(1621 - 1678)

American musician Charles Mingus.

Charles Mingus

(1922 - 1979)

Italian poet and scholar Giovanni Boccaccio.

Giovanni Boccaccio

(1313 - 1375)

Héloïse

(c. 1098 - 1164)

Annie Proulx

photograph of David Foster Wallace speaking at a podium

David Foster Wallace

(1962 - 2008)

Alfred Kinsey

(1894 - 1956)

Black and white photograph of French writer and feminist Simone de Beauvoir.

Simone de Beauvoir

(1908 - 1986)

British writer Vita Sackville-West.

Vita Sackville-West

(1892 - 1962)

Lewis Lapham at his desk

Lewis H. Lapham

(1935 - 2024)

American writer Philip Roth.

Philip Roth

(1933 - 2018)

English writer Geoffrey Chaucer.

Geoffrey Chaucer

(c. 1342 - 1400)

Color photograph of American novelist and short-story writer Richard Wright.

Richard Wright

(1908 - 1960)

Black and white photograph of German novelist and essayist Thomas Mann.

Thomas Mann

(1875 - 1955)

French general and emperor Napoleon Bonaparte.

Napoleon Bonaparte

(1769 - 1821)

Color portrait of the Italian writer and libertine Giacomo Casanova.

Giacomo Casanova

(1725 - 1798)

J.M. Coetzee

Black and white photograph of American writer and critic Anatole Broyard.

Anatole Broyard

(1920 - 1990)

English dramatist, writer, and poet Aphra Behn.

Aphra Behn

(1640 - 1689)

Longus

(c. 180 - c. 230)

King of England Henry VIII.

Henry VIII

(1491 - 1547)

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

Michel de Montaigne

(1533 - 1592)

Classical engraving of Aristophanes with a long beard.

Aristophanes

(c. 446 BC - c. 386 BC)

Anna Akhmatova

(1889 - 1966)

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

Sigmund Freud

(1856 - 1949)

Black and white image of Persian lyric poet Hafez.

Hafez

(c. 1320 - c. 1390)

Sufi mystic and poet Rumi.

Rumi

(c. 1207 - 1273)

Black and white engraving of Roman author Petronius.

Gaius Petronius Arbiter

(c. 27 - 66)

Saint Augustine (detail), by Philippe de Champaigne, c. 1645.

Saint Augustine

(354 - 430)

Frontispiece for 1612-13 King James Bible.

The Bible

Black and white photograph of English poet and librarian Philip Larkin.

Philip Larkin

(1922 - 1985)

Professor of history Dagmar Herzog.

Dagmar Herzog

Japanese diarist and poet Sei Shōnagon.

Sei Shonagon

(c. 966 - c. 1025)

Leopold von Sacher-Masoch

(1836 - 1935)

French philosopher and historian Michel Foucault.

Michel Foucault

(1926 - 1984)

Engraving of Greek satirist Lucian.

Lucian

(125 - c. 180)

Black and white photograph of C. P. Cavafy wearing thick-rimmed black glasses.

C.P. Cavafy

(1863 - 1933)

Gabriel García Márquez

(1927 - 2014)

Ovid

(43 BC - c. 17)

Black and white image of English scholar, writer, and clergyman Robert Burton.

Robert Burton

(1577 - 1640)

Portrait of English poet John Keats.

John Keats

(1795 - 1821)

Depiction of Greek lyric poet Sappho.

Sappho

(c. 610 BC - c. 570 BC)

American poet, journalist, and essayist Walt Whitman.

Walt Whitman

(1819 - 1892)

Black and white photograph of French novelist, essayist, and playwright Albert Camus.

Albert Camus

(1913 - 1960)

Portrait of Sister Juana Inés de la Cruz in a nun's habit.

Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz

(c. 1651 - 1695)

Black and white photograph of Russian author Leo Tolstoy.

Leo Tolstoy

(1828 - 1910)

British author Aldous Huxley.

Aldous Huxley

(1894 - 1963)

English poet, dramatist, and critic John Dryden.

John Dryden

(1631 - 1700)

Photograph of Charles Baudelaire

Charles Baudelaire

(1821 - 1867)

Sarah Bernhardt

(1844 - 1923)

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

Emily Dickinson

(1830 - 1886)

German poet Heinrich Heine.

Heinrich Heine

(1797 - 1856)

Black and white image of French classical author La Rochefoucauld.

La Rochefoucauld

(1613 - 1680)

Painting of Benjamin Franklin reading a batch of papers next to a classical bust.

Benjamin Franklin

(1706 - 1790)

Photograph of Vladimir Nabokov

Vladimir Nabokov

(1899 - 1977)

Black and white photograph of French writer and film director Marguerite Duras.

Marguerite Duras

(1914 - 1996)

Portrait of English wit and poet John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester with monkey.

John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester

(1647 - 1680)

Ernest Hemingway standing between two large hanging fish

Ernest Hemingway

(1899 - 1961)

Artemidorus

(c. 101 - c. 200)