Loren Eiseley

(1907 - 1977)

Ovid

(43 BC - c. 17)

Jamaica Kincaid

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

Sigmund Freud

(1856 - 1949)

Italian artist, engineer, and scientist Leonardo da Vinci.

Leonardo da Vinci

(1452 - 1519)

French man of letters Denis Diderot.

Denis Diderot

(1713 - 1784)

Portrait bust of Roman poet Virgil.

Virgil

(70 BC - 19 BC)

Portrait of English physicist and mathematician Isaac Newton.

Isaac Newton

(1643 - 1727)

Color photograph of American writer Annie Dillard.

Annie Dillard

Robinson Jeffers

(1887 - 1962)

American poet Anne Bradstreet.

Anne Bradstreet

(c. 1612 - 1672)

Photograph of American biologist Edward O. Wilson.

Edward O. Wilson

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

Nathaniel Hawthorne

(1804 - 1864)

David Quammen

Painted portrait of German naturalist and explorer Alexander von Humboldt.

Alexander von Humboldt

(1769 - 1859)

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

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

(1712 - 1778)

English poet Edmund Spenser.

Edmund Spenser

(1552 - 1599)

Portrait of third president of the United States Thomas Jefferson.

Thomas Jefferson

(1743 - 1826)

Andrew Jackson

(1767 - 1845)

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

Joseph Conrad

(1857 - 1924)

Pretty-shield

(1856 - 1944)

Depiction of Plymouth colony governor William Bradford.

William Bradford

(1590 - 1657)

Engraving of a bust of Lucretius.

Lucretius

(c. 95 BC - c. 50 BC)

Charles Bowden

(1945 - 2014)

Photograph of Rachel Carson

Rachel Carson

(1907 - 1964)

Frederick Turner

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

Marcus Tullius Cicero

(106 BC - 43 BC)

Man with a gray goatee wearing a checked shirt standing outdoors

Eric Schlosser

Black and white photograph of American novelist John Steinbeck.

John Steinbeck

(1902 - 1968)

Frederick Jackson Turner

(1861 - 1932)

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

E.B. White

(1899 - 1985)

Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés.

Hernán Cortés

(1485 - 1547)

Sculpture bust of Greek historian Herodotus.

Herodotus

(c. 484 BC - c. 425 BC)

John Muir

(1838 - 1914)

Steven Stoll

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

Theodore Roosevelt

(1858 - 1919)

Alain de Lille

(c. 1128 - 1202)

Theocritus

(c. 300 BC - c. 260 BC)

Jane Jacobs

(1916 - 2006)

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

H.G. Wells

(1866 - 1946)

Chris Rose

Image of English naturalist Charles Darwin.

Charles Darwin

(1809 - 1882)

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

John Berger

(1926 - 2017)

Photograph of American poet Countee Cullen.

Countee Cullen

(1903 - 1946)

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

W.B. Yeats

(1865 - 1939)

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

J. Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur

(1735 - 1813)

Lewis Lapham at his desk

Lewis H. Lapham

(1935 - 2024)

Smiling man with thin hair sticking out at a podium

James D. Watson

Italian poet Dante Alighieri.

Dante Alighieri

(1265 - 1321)

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

Adolf Hitler

(1889 - 1945)

Engraving of William Shakespeare from the first folio edition.

William Shakespeare

(1564 - 1616)

American author Evan S. Connell.

Evan S. Connell

(1924 - 2013)

Vitruvius

(c. 80 BC - 15 BC)

Nicholas Barbon

(c. 1640 - 1698)

Photograph of American environmentalist Aldo Leopold.

Aldo Leopold

(1887 - 1948)

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

Ralph Waldo Emerson

(1803 - 1882)

Bill McKibben

English economist and demographer Thomas Malthus.

Thomas Malthus

(1766 - 1834)

Image of medieval traveler Sir John Mandeville.

John Mandeville

(c. 1300 - 1371)

Jules Verne

Jules Verne

(1828 - 1905)

D. Graham Burnett

American physicist Richard Feynman.

Richard Feynman

(1918 - 1988)

American diplomat, scholar, and conservationist George Perkins Marsh.

George Perkins Marsh

(1801 - 1882)

British author Aldous Huxley.

Aldous Huxley

(1894 - 1963)

Immanuel Kant

(1724 - 1804)

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

John Winthrop

(1588 - 1649)

Photograph of British writer and journalist Simon Winchester.

Simon Winchester

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

Michel de Montaigne

(1533 - 1592)

Engraving of Pliny the Elder.

Pliny the Elder

(23 - 79)

Henry David Thoreau

Henry David Thoreau

(1817 - 1862)

Paul Gauguin

(1848 - 1903)

Edward Hoagland

Novalis

(1772 - 1801)

British author Mary Shelley.

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

(1797 - 1851)

Wang Wei

(701 - 761)

Painting of William Wordsworth.

William Wordsworth

(1770 - 1850)

English poet and satirist Alexander Pope.

Alexander Pope

(1688 - 1744)

American landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted.

Frederick Law Olmsted

(1822 - 1903)

Photograph of American novelist Jack London.

Jack London

(1876 - 1916)

Curtis White

Carl Sagan

(1934 - 1996)

Engraving of Roman author and administrator Pliny the Younger.

Pliny the Younger

(61 - 112)

Lewis Thomas

(1913 - 1993)

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

Emily Dickinson

(1830 - 1886)

Painting of Greek philosopher Heraclitus weeping over a globe.

Heraclitus

(c. 540 BC - c. 480 BC)

Painted portrait of English poet John Milton.

John Milton

(1608 - 1674)

Photograph of American writer and naturalist Henry Beston.

Henry Beston

(1888 - 1968)

Novelist and psychiatrist Daniel Mason.

Daniel Mason

Paracelsus

(1493 - 1541)

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

Homer

(c. 800 BC - 725 BC)

Black and white image of American writer Herman Melville.

Herman Melville

(1819 - 1891)

Photograph of Native American author and educator Luther Standing Bear.

Luther Standing Bear

(1868 - 1939)

William Blake

(1757 - 1827)

Portrait of Francis Bacon in sixteenth-century armor.

Francis Bacon

(1561 - 1626)

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

Georges-Louis Leclerc, count de Buffon

(1707 - 1788)

Edward Abbey

(1927 - 1989)

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

Friedrich Nietzsche

(1844 - 1900)

John D. Rockefeller Jr.

(1874 - 1960)

German writer and statesman Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

(1749 - 1832)

Al Gore

Giovanni Pico Della Mirandola

(1463 - 1494)

Jonathan Swift

Jonathan Swift

(1667 - 1745)

Photograph of journalist, author, and professor Michael Pollan.

Michael Pollan

American poet, journalist, and essayist Walt Whitman.

Walt Whitman

(1819 - 1892)

Color photograph of writer and editor Garret Keizer.

Garret Keizer

Image of Japanese haiku poet Matsuo Bashō.

Matsuo Basho

(1644 - 1694)