Charles Bowden

(1945 - 2014)

John D. Rockefeller Jr.

(1874 - 1960)

Man with a gray goatee wearing a checked shirt standing outdoors

Eric Schlosser

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

John Berger

(1926 - 2017)

Smiling man with thin hair sticking out at a podium

James D. Watson

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

Homer

(c. 800 BC - 725 BC)

Al Gore

William Blake

(1757 - 1827)

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

H.G. Wells

(1866 - 1946)

American poet Anne Bradstreet.

Anne Bradstreet

(c. 1612 - 1672)

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

Marcus Tullius Cicero

(106 BC - 43 BC)

Painting of William Wordsworth.

William Wordsworth

(1770 - 1850)

Immanuel Kant

(1724 - 1804)

Robinson Jeffers

(1887 - 1962)

Jonathan Swift

Jonathan Swift

(1667 - 1745)

Painted portrait of English poet John Milton.

John Milton

(1608 - 1674)

Engraving of Roman author and administrator Pliny the Younger.

Pliny the Younger

(61 - 112)

Photograph of American environmentalist Aldo Leopold.

Aldo Leopold

(1887 - 1948)

English poet Edmund Spenser.

Edmund Spenser

(1552 - 1599)

Engraving of a bust of Lucretius.

Lucretius

(c. 95 BC - c. 50 BC)

Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés.

Hernán Cortés

(1485 - 1547)

D. Graham Burnett

Edward Hoagland

French man of letters Denis Diderot.

Denis Diderot

(1713 - 1784)

Lewis Lapham at his desk

Lewis H. Lapham

(1935 - 2024)

Frederick Jackson Turner

(1861 - 1932)

Curtis White

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

Theodore Roosevelt

(1858 - 1919)

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

Georges-Louis Leclerc, count de Buffon

(1707 - 1788)

Andrew Jackson

(1767 - 1845)

Carl Sagan

(1934 - 1996)

Photograph of American writer and naturalist Henry Beston.

Henry Beston

(1888 - 1968)

John Muir

(1838 - 1914)

Vitruvius

(c. 80 BC - 15 BC)

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

Adolf Hitler

(1889 - 1945)

Image of Japanese haiku poet Matsuo Bashō.

Matsuo Basho

(1644 - 1694)

Jules Verne

Jules Verne

(1828 - 1905)

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

John Winthrop

(1588 - 1649)

Engraving of Pliny the Elder.

Pliny the Elder

(23 - 79)

American author Evan S. Connell.

Evan S. Connell

(1924 - 2013)

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)

Ovid

(43 BC - c. 17)

Alain de Lille

(c. 1128 - 1202)

Frederick Turner

Color photograph of writer and editor Garret Keizer.

Garret Keizer

Black and white image of American writer Herman Melville.

Herman Melville

(1819 - 1891)

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

E.B. White

(1899 - 1985)

Novalis

(1772 - 1801)

Steven Stoll

Portrait bust of Roman poet Virgil.

Virgil

(70 BC - 19 BC)

Theocritus

(c. 300 BC - c. 260 BC)

Portrait of third president of the United States Thomas Jefferson.

Thomas Jefferson

(1743 - 1826)

Color photograph of American writer Annie Dillard.

Annie Dillard

Photograph of Rachel Carson

Rachel Carson

(1907 - 1964)

Photograph of American biologist Edward O. Wilson.

Edward O. Wilson

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

W.B. Yeats

(1865 - 1939)

Image of English naturalist Charles Darwin.

Charles Darwin

(1809 - 1882)

Sculpture bust of Greek historian Herodotus.

Herodotus

(c. 484 BC - c. 425 BC)

Photograph of journalist, author, and professor Michael Pollan.

Michael Pollan

Novelist and psychiatrist Daniel Mason.

Daniel Mason

Italian artist, engineer, and scientist Leonardo da Vinci.

Leonardo da Vinci

(1452 - 1519)

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

Nathaniel Hawthorne

(1804 - 1864)

Painting of Greek philosopher Heraclitus weeping over a globe.

Heraclitus

(c. 540 BC - c. 480 BC)

Giovanni Pico Della Mirandola

(1463 - 1494)

American diplomat, scholar, and conservationist George Perkins Marsh.

George Perkins Marsh

(1801 - 1882)

Jamaica Kincaid

Painted portrait of German naturalist and explorer Alexander von Humboldt.

Alexander von Humboldt

(1769 - 1859)

Paul Gauguin

(1848 - 1903)

Photograph of British writer and journalist Simon Winchester.

Simon Winchester

Portrait of Francis Bacon in sixteenth-century armor.

Francis Bacon

(1561 - 1626)

Edward Abbey

(1927 - 1989)

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

Ralph Waldo Emerson

(1803 - 1882)

Loren Eiseley

(1907 - 1977)

German writer and statesman Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

(1749 - 1832)

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

Sigmund Freud

(1856 - 1949)

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

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

(1712 - 1778)

Photograph of American poet Countee Cullen.

Countee Cullen

(1903 - 1946)

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

Emily Dickinson

(1830 - 1886)

Black and white photograph of American novelist John Steinbeck.

John Steinbeck

(1902 - 1968)

Photograph of American novelist Jack London.

Jack London

(1876 - 1916)

Photograph of Native American author and educator Luther Standing Bear.

Luther Standing Bear

(1868 - 1939)

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

Friedrich Nietzsche

(1844 - 1900)

English poet and satirist Alexander Pope.

Alexander Pope

(1688 - 1744)

Image of medieval traveler Sir John Mandeville.

John Mandeville

(c. 1300 - 1371)

American physicist Richard Feynman.

Richard Feynman

(1918 - 1988)

Lewis Thomas

(1913 - 1993)

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

Joseph Conrad

(1857 - 1924)

Engraving of William Shakespeare from the first folio edition.

William Shakespeare

(1564 - 1616)

British author Aldous Huxley.

Aldous Huxley

(1894 - 1963)

Portrait of English physicist and mathematician Isaac Newton.

Isaac Newton

(1643 - 1727)

British author Mary Shelley.

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

(1797 - 1851)

Italian poet Dante Alighieri.

Dante Alighieri

(1265 - 1321)

Wang Wei

(701 - 761)

American poet, journalist, and essayist Walt Whitman.

Walt Whitman

(1819 - 1892)

English economist and demographer Thomas Malthus.

Thomas Malthus

(1766 - 1834)

Pretty-shield

(1856 - 1944)

Chris Rose

Paracelsus

(1493 - 1541)

Depiction of Plymouth colony governor William Bradford.

William Bradford

(1590 - 1657)

American landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted.

Frederick Law Olmsted

(1822 - 1903)

Jane Jacobs

(1916 - 2006)

Henry David Thoreau

Henry David Thoreau

(1817 - 1862)

Nicholas Barbon

(c. 1640 - 1698)

Bill McKibben

David Quammen