Portrait of Francis Bacon in sixteenth-century armor.

Francis Bacon

(1561 - 1626)

Photograph of Rachel Carson

Rachel Carson

(1907 - 1964)

Charles Bowden

(1945 - 2014)

Ovid

(43 BC - c. 17)

Nicholas Barbon

(c. 1640 - 1698)

British author Mary Shelley.

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

(1797 - 1851)

Paul Gauguin

(1848 - 1903)

American landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted.

Frederick Law Olmsted

(1822 - 1903)

Curtis White

Al Gore

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

Friedrich Nietzsche

(1844 - 1900)

Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés.

Hernán Cortés

(1485 - 1547)

American diplomat, scholar, and conservationist George Perkins Marsh.

George Perkins Marsh

(1801 - 1882)

Lewis Lapham at his desk

Lewis H. Lapham

(1935 - 2024)

Italian poet Dante Alighieri.

Dante Alighieri

(1265 - 1321)

American author Evan S. Connell.

Evan S. Connell

(1924 - 2013)

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

Theodore Roosevelt

(1858 - 1919)

Jane Jacobs

(1916 - 2006)

Edward Abbey

(1927 - 1989)

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

John Winthrop

(1588 - 1649)

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

Emily Dickinson

(1830 - 1886)

English economist and demographer Thomas Malthus.

Thomas Malthus

(1766 - 1834)

Alain de Lille

(c. 1128 - 1202)

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

Nathaniel Hawthorne

(1804 - 1864)

Photograph of journalist, author, and professor Michael Pollan.

Michael Pollan

Lewis Thomas

(1913 - 1993)

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

H.G. Wells

(1866 - 1946)

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

J. Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur

(1735 - 1813)

Paracelsus

(1493 - 1541)

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

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

(1712 - 1778)

French man of letters Denis Diderot.

Denis Diderot

(1713 - 1784)

Painted portrait of English poet John Milton.

John Milton

(1608 - 1674)

John D. Rockefeller Jr.

(1874 - 1960)

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

W.B. Yeats

(1865 - 1939)

Jamaica Kincaid

Portrait of English physicist and mathematician Isaac Newton.

Isaac Newton

(1643 - 1727)

Chris Rose

Photograph of Native American author and educator Luther Standing Bear.

Luther Standing Bear

(1868 - 1939)

Jonathan Swift

Jonathan Swift

(1667 - 1745)

Novelist and psychiatrist Daniel Mason.

Daniel Mason

Painting of Greek philosopher Heraclitus weeping over a globe.

Heraclitus

(c. 540 BC - c. 480 BC)

Depiction of Plymouth colony governor William Bradford.

William Bradford

(1590 - 1657)

Italian artist, engineer, and scientist Leonardo da Vinci.

Leonardo da Vinci

(1452 - 1519)

Photograph of American poet Countee Cullen.

Countee Cullen

(1903 - 1946)

American poet, journalist, and essayist Walt Whitman.

Walt Whitman

(1819 - 1892)

Black and white photograph of American novelist John Steinbeck.

John Steinbeck

(1902 - 1968)

Engraving of a bust of Lucretius.

Lucretius

(c. 95 BC - c. 50 BC)

Wang Wei

(701 - 761)

Theocritus

(c. 300 BC - c. 260 BC)

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

Michel de Montaigne

(1533 - 1592)

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

Marcus Tullius Cicero

(106 BC - 43 BC)

Color photograph of writer and editor Garret Keizer.

Garret Keizer

Henry David Thoreau

Henry David Thoreau

(1817 - 1862)

Painted portrait of German naturalist and explorer Alexander von Humboldt.

Alexander von Humboldt

(1769 - 1859)

English poet Edmund Spenser.

Edmund Spenser

(1552 - 1599)

D. Graham Burnett

Andrew Jackson

(1767 - 1845)

Jules Verne

Jules Verne

(1828 - 1905)

Portrait bust of Roman poet Virgil.

Virgil

(70 BC - 19 BC)

Man with a gray goatee wearing a checked shirt standing outdoors

Eric Schlosser

Image of Japanese haiku poet Matsuo Bashō.

Matsuo Basho

(1644 - 1694)

Edward Hoagland

Black and white image of American writer Herman Melville.

Herman Melville

(1819 - 1891)

Carl Sagan

(1934 - 1996)

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

Joseph Conrad

(1857 - 1924)

Engraving of Roman author and administrator Pliny the Younger.

Pliny the Younger

(61 - 112)

American poet Anne Bradstreet.

Anne Bradstreet

(c. 1612 - 1672)

Novalis

(1772 - 1801)

Photograph of British writer and journalist Simon Winchester.

Simon Winchester

Steven Stoll

Frederick Turner

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

E.B. White

(1899 - 1985)

Photograph of American environmentalist Aldo Leopold.

Aldo Leopold

(1887 - 1948)

Photograph of American novelist Jack London.

Jack London

(1876 - 1916)

German writer and statesman Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

(1749 - 1832)

Giovanni Pico Della Mirandola

(1463 - 1494)

Immanuel Kant

(1724 - 1804)

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

Homer

(c. 800 BC - 725 BC)

Sculpture bust of Greek historian Herodotus.

Herodotus

(c. 484 BC - c. 425 BC)

Photograph of American biologist Edward O. Wilson.

Edward O. Wilson

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

Georges-Louis Leclerc, count de Buffon

(1707 - 1788)

Smiling man with thin hair sticking out at a podium

James D. Watson

British author Aldous Huxley.

Aldous Huxley

(1894 - 1963)

Image of English naturalist Charles Darwin.

Charles Darwin

(1809 - 1882)

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

Sigmund Freud

(1856 - 1949)

Frederick Jackson Turner

(1861 - 1932)

Image of medieval traveler Sir John Mandeville.

John Mandeville

(c. 1300 - 1371)

Engraving of Pliny the Elder.

Pliny the Elder

(23 - 79)

Bill McKibben

Vitruvius

(c. 80 BC - 15 BC)

American physicist Richard Feynman.

Richard Feynman

(1918 - 1988)

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

Ralph Waldo Emerson

(1803 - 1882)

Engraving of William Shakespeare from the first folio edition.

William Shakespeare

(1564 - 1616)

John Muir

(1838 - 1914)

Loren Eiseley

(1907 - 1977)

Color photograph of American writer Annie Dillard.

Annie Dillard

Painting of William Wordsworth.

William Wordsworth

(1770 - 1850)

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

John Berger

(1926 - 2017)

William Blake

(1757 - 1827)

Pretty-shield

(1856 - 1944)

Portrait of third president of the United States Thomas Jefferson.

Thomas Jefferson

(1743 - 1826)

David Quammen

Robinson Jeffers

(1887 - 1962)

Photograph of American writer and naturalist Henry Beston.

Henry Beston

(1888 - 1968)

English poet and satirist Alexander Pope.

Alexander Pope

(1688 - 1744)

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

Adolf Hitler

(1889 - 1945)