British author Aldous Huxley.

Aldous Huxley

(1894 - 1963)

William Blake

(1757 - 1827)

Man with a gray goatee wearing a checked shirt standing outdoors

Eric Schlosser

Curtis White

Charles Bowden

(1945 - 2014)

Bill McKibben

American landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted.

Frederick Law Olmsted

(1822 - 1903)

Paul Gauguin

(1848 - 1903)

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

Georges-Louis Leclerc, count de Buffon

(1707 - 1788)

Image of Japanese haiku poet Matsuo Bashō.

Matsuo Basho

(1644 - 1694)

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

Joseph Conrad

(1857 - 1924)

Wang Wei

(701 - 761)

Jules Verne

Jules Verne

(1828 - 1905)

English poet Edmund Spenser.

Edmund Spenser

(1552 - 1599)

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

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

(1712 - 1778)

Novelist and psychiatrist Daniel Mason.

Daniel Mason

Jane Jacobs

(1916 - 2006)

Color photograph of writer and editor Garret Keizer.

Garret Keizer

Painting of William Wordsworth.

William Wordsworth

(1770 - 1850)

Engraving of William Shakespeare from the first folio edition.

William Shakespeare

(1564 - 1616)

Photograph of American writer and naturalist Henry Beston.

Henry Beston

(1888 - 1968)

Frederick Turner

English economist and demographer Thomas Malthus.

Thomas Malthus

(1766 - 1834)

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

Ralph Waldo Emerson

(1803 - 1882)

Frederick Jackson Turner

(1861 - 1932)

Giovanni Pico Della Mirandola

(1463 - 1494)

Steven Stoll

Photograph of journalist, author, and professor Michael Pollan.

Michael Pollan

Italian artist, engineer, and scientist Leonardo da Vinci.

Leonardo da Vinci

(1452 - 1519)

Painted portrait of German naturalist and explorer Alexander von Humboldt.

Alexander von Humboldt

(1769 - 1859)

Nicholas Barbon

(c. 1640 - 1698)

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

Adolf Hitler

(1889 - 1945)

David Quammen

Photograph of Rachel Carson

Rachel Carson

(1907 - 1964)

Engraving of Pliny the Elder.

Pliny the Elder

(23 - 79)

Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés.

Hernán Cortés

(1485 - 1547)

Photograph of American biologist Edward O. Wilson.

Edward O. Wilson

British author Mary Shelley.

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

(1797 - 1851)

Robinson Jeffers

(1887 - 1962)

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

Sigmund Freud

(1856 - 1949)

Portrait of Francis Bacon in sixteenth-century armor.

Francis Bacon

(1561 - 1626)

Theocritus

(c. 300 BC - c. 260 BC)

John D. Rockefeller Jr.

(1874 - 1960)

Image of English naturalist Charles Darwin.

Charles Darwin

(1809 - 1882)

American author Evan S. Connell.

Evan S. Connell

(1924 - 2013)

John Muir

(1838 - 1914)

Depiction of Plymouth colony governor William Bradford.

William Bradford

(1590 - 1657)

Photograph of American environmentalist Aldo Leopold.

Aldo Leopold

(1887 - 1948)

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

H.G. Wells

(1866 - 1946)

Photograph of American poet Countee Cullen.

Countee Cullen

(1903 - 1946)

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

Homer

(c. 800 BC - 725 BC)

Engraving of a bust of Lucretius.

Lucretius

(c. 95 BC - c. 50 BC)

Painting of Greek philosopher Heraclitus weeping over a globe.

Heraclitus

(c. 540 BC - c. 480 BC)

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

Michel de Montaigne

(1533 - 1592)

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

J. Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur

(1735 - 1813)

Photograph of Native American author and educator Luther Standing Bear.

Luther Standing Bear

(1868 - 1939)

Painted portrait of English poet John Milton.

John Milton

(1608 - 1674)

Chris Rose

Portrait bust of Roman poet Virgil.

Virgil

(70 BC - 19 BC)

French man of letters Denis Diderot.

Denis Diderot

(1713 - 1784)

English poet and satirist Alexander Pope.

Alexander Pope

(1688 - 1744)

Black and white photograph of American novelist John Steinbeck.

John Steinbeck

(1902 - 1968)

Edward Hoagland

Jonathan Swift

Jonathan Swift

(1667 - 1745)

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

John Winthrop

(1588 - 1649)

American poet Anne Bradstreet.

Anne Bradstreet

(c. 1612 - 1672)

Italian poet Dante Alighieri.

Dante Alighieri

(1265 - 1321)

Al Gore

American poet, journalist, and essayist Walt Whitman.

Walt Whitman

(1819 - 1892)

D. Graham Burnett

Immanuel Kant

(1724 - 1804)

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

Friedrich Nietzsche

(1844 - 1900)

Photograph of American novelist Jack London.

Jack London

(1876 - 1916)

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

E.B. White

(1899 - 1985)

Andrew Jackson

(1767 - 1845)

Pretty-shield

(1856 - 1944)

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

Theodore Roosevelt

(1858 - 1919)

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

W.B. Yeats

(1865 - 1939)

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

John Berger

(1926 - 2017)

Vitruvius

(c. 80 BC - 15 BC)

Color photograph of American writer Annie Dillard.

Annie Dillard

Photograph of British writer and journalist Simon Winchester.

Simon Winchester

German writer and statesman Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

(1749 - 1832)

American physicist Richard Feynman.

Richard Feynman

(1918 - 1988)

Sculpture bust of Greek historian Herodotus.

Herodotus

(c. 484 BC - c. 425 BC)

Loren Eiseley

(1907 - 1977)

Lewis Lapham at his desk

Lewis H. Lapham

(1935 - 2024)

Alain de Lille

(c. 1128 - 1202)

Portrait of English physicist and mathematician Isaac Newton.

Isaac Newton

(1643 - 1727)

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

Marcus Tullius Cicero

(106 BC - 43 BC)

Lewis Thomas

(1913 - 1993)

Portrait of third president of the United States Thomas Jefferson.

Thomas Jefferson

(1743 - 1826)

Edward Abbey

(1927 - 1989)

Henry David Thoreau

Henry David Thoreau

(1817 - 1862)

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

Nathaniel Hawthorne

(1804 - 1864)

Engraving of Roman author and administrator Pliny the Younger.

Pliny the Younger

(61 - 112)

Paracelsus

(1493 - 1541)

Carl Sagan

(1934 - 1996)

Smiling man with thin hair sticking out at a podium

James D. Watson

Jamaica Kincaid

Image of medieval traveler Sir John Mandeville.

John Mandeville

(c. 1300 - 1371)

American diplomat, scholar, and conservationist George Perkins Marsh.

George Perkins Marsh

(1801 - 1882)

Black and white image of American writer Herman Melville.

Herman Melville

(1819 - 1891)

Novalis

(1772 - 1801)

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

Emily Dickinson

(1830 - 1886)

Ovid

(43 BC - c. 17)