Steven Stoll

Alain de Lille

(c. 1128 - 1202)

Lewis Thomas

(1913 - 1993)

Photograph of American novelist Jack London.

Jack London

(1876 - 1916)

Painted portrait of English poet John Milton.

John Milton

(1608 - 1674)

Sculpture bust of Greek historian Herodotus.

Herodotus

(c. 484 BC - c. 425 BC)

Robinson Jeffers

(1887 - 1962)

Jules Verne

Jules Verne

(1828 - 1905)

Theocritus

(c. 300 BC - c. 260 BC)

Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés.

Hernán Cortés

(1485 - 1547)

William Blake

(1757 - 1827)

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

John Winthrop

(1588 - 1649)

British author Aldous Huxley.

Aldous Huxley

(1894 - 1963)

Man with a gray goatee wearing a checked shirt standing outdoors

Eric Schlosser

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

Emily Dickinson

(1830 - 1886)

German writer and statesman Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

(1749 - 1832)

Black and white photograph of American novelist John Steinbeck.

John Steinbeck

(1902 - 1968)

D. Graham Burnett

Portrait bust of Roman poet Virgil.

Virgil

(70 BC - 19 BC)

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

Theodore Roosevelt

(1858 - 1919)

John Muir

(1838 - 1914)

American physicist Richard Feynman.

Richard Feynman

(1918 - 1988)

Color photograph of writer and editor Garret Keizer.

Garret Keizer

English poet Edmund Spenser.

Edmund Spenser

(1552 - 1599)

English poet and satirist Alexander Pope.

Alexander Pope

(1688 - 1744)

Novalis

(1772 - 1801)

Vitruvius

(c. 80 BC - 15 BC)

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

Adolf Hitler

(1889 - 1945)

Henry David Thoreau

Henry David Thoreau

(1817 - 1862)

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

J. Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur

(1735 - 1813)

Portrait of third president of the United States Thomas Jefferson.

Thomas Jefferson

(1743 - 1826)

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

H.G. Wells

(1866 - 1946)

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

Ralph Waldo Emerson

(1803 - 1882)

Painting of Greek philosopher Heraclitus weeping over a globe.

Heraclitus

(c. 540 BC - c. 480 BC)

Painted portrait of German naturalist and explorer Alexander von Humboldt.

Alexander von Humboldt

(1769 - 1859)

Black and white image of American writer Herman Melville.

Herman Melville

(1819 - 1891)

British author Mary Shelley.

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

(1797 - 1851)

Italian poet Dante Alighieri.

Dante Alighieri

(1265 - 1321)

Engraving of Pliny the Elder.

Pliny the Elder

(23 - 79)

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

Michel de Montaigne

(1533 - 1592)

Frederick Turner

Engraving of a bust of Lucretius.

Lucretius

(c. 95 BC - c. 50 BC)

Paracelsus

(1493 - 1541)

John D. Rockefeller Jr.

(1874 - 1960)

Jamaica Kincaid

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

Friedrich Nietzsche

(1844 - 1900)

Photograph of American environmentalist Aldo Leopold.

Aldo Leopold

(1887 - 1948)

French man of letters Denis Diderot.

Denis Diderot

(1713 - 1784)

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)

Engraving of William Shakespeare from the first folio edition.

William Shakespeare

(1564 - 1616)

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

Sigmund Freud

(1856 - 1949)

Ovid

(43 BC - c. 17)

Photograph of American biologist Edward O. Wilson.

Edward O. Wilson

Wang Wei

(701 - 761)

Photograph of British writer and journalist Simon Winchester.

Simon Winchester

American diplomat, scholar, and conservationist George Perkins Marsh.

George Perkins Marsh

(1801 - 1882)

Smiling man with thin hair sticking out at a podium

James D. Watson

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

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

(1712 - 1778)

Curtis White

Painting of William Wordsworth.

William Wordsworth

(1770 - 1850)

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

Georges-Louis Leclerc, count de Buffon

(1707 - 1788)

Frederick Jackson Turner

(1861 - 1932)

Edward Hoagland

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

Joseph Conrad

(1857 - 1924)

Jane Jacobs

(1916 - 2006)

Nicholas Barbon

(c. 1640 - 1698)

David Quammen

Portrait of English physicist and mathematician Isaac Newton.

Isaac Newton

(1643 - 1727)

Image of English naturalist Charles Darwin.

Charles Darwin

(1809 - 1882)

Depiction of Plymouth colony governor William Bradford.

William Bradford

(1590 - 1657)

Lewis Lapham at his desk

Lewis H. Lapham

(1935 - 2024)

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

Homer

(c. 800 BC - 725 BC)

Photograph of American poet Countee Cullen.

Countee Cullen

(1903 - 1946)

American poet, journalist, and essayist Walt Whitman.

Walt Whitman

(1819 - 1892)

Al Gore

Photograph of Rachel Carson

Rachel Carson

(1907 - 1964)

Immanuel Kant

(1724 - 1804)

Charles Bowden

(1945 - 2014)

Jonathan Swift

Jonathan Swift

(1667 - 1745)

Giovanni Pico Della Mirandola

(1463 - 1494)

Image of Japanese haiku poet Matsuo Bashō.

Matsuo Basho

(1644 - 1694)

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

John Berger

(1926 - 2017)

English economist and demographer Thomas Malthus.

Thomas Malthus

(1766 - 1834)

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

W.B. Yeats

(1865 - 1939)

Photograph of American writer and naturalist Henry Beston.

Henry Beston

(1888 - 1968)

Chris Rose

Pretty-shield

(1856 - 1944)

Carl Sagan

(1934 - 1996)

Paul Gauguin

(1848 - 1903)

Bill McKibben

Italian artist, engineer, and scientist Leonardo da Vinci.

Leonardo da Vinci

(1452 - 1519)

American landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted.

Frederick Law Olmsted

(1822 - 1903)

American author Evan S. Connell.

Evan S. Connell

(1924 - 2013)

Andrew Jackson

(1767 - 1845)

Image of medieval traveler Sir John Mandeville.

John Mandeville

(c. 1300 - 1371)

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)

Loren Eiseley

(1907 - 1977)

Color photograph of American writer Annie Dillard.

Annie Dillard

Photograph of journalist, author, and professor Michael Pollan.

Michael Pollan

Novelist and psychiatrist Daniel Mason.

Daniel Mason

Photograph of Native American author and educator Luther Standing Bear.

Luther Standing Bear

(1868 - 1939)

Portrait of Francis Bacon in sixteenth-century armor.

Francis Bacon

(1561 - 1626)

Edward Abbey

(1927 - 1989)

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

Marcus Tullius Cicero

(106 BC - 43 BC)