Robinson Jeffers

(1887 - 1962)

Portrait of Francis Bacon in sixteenth-century armor.

Francis Bacon

(1561 - 1626)

Black and white photograph of American novelist John Steinbeck.

John Steinbeck

(1902 - 1968)

German writer and statesman Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

(1749 - 1832)

Theocritus

(c. 300 BC - c. 260 BC)

D. Graham Burnett

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

Friedrich Nietzsche

(1844 - 1900)

Pretty-shield

(1856 - 1944)

Engraving of William Shakespeare from the first folio edition.

William Shakespeare

(1564 - 1616)

Curtis White

Immanuel Kant

(1724 - 1804)

Frederick Jackson Turner

(1861 - 1932)

Charles Bowden

(1945 - 2014)

Paul Gauguin

(1848 - 1903)

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

W.B. Yeats

(1865 - 1939)

British author Aldous Huxley.

Aldous Huxley

(1894 - 1963)

Painting of Greek philosopher Heraclitus weeping over a globe.

Heraclitus

(c. 540 BC - c. 480 BC)

John Muir

(1838 - 1914)

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

H.G. Wells

(1866 - 1946)

American landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted.

Frederick Law Olmsted

(1822 - 1903)

John D. Rockefeller Jr.

(1874 - 1960)

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

Joseph Conrad

(1857 - 1924)

Novelist and psychiatrist Daniel Mason.

Daniel Mason

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

Ralph Waldo Emerson

(1803 - 1882)

Edward Abbey

(1927 - 1989)

Jane Jacobs

(1916 - 2006)

Photograph of American novelist Jack London.

Jack London

(1876 - 1916)

American poet, journalist, and essayist Walt Whitman.

Walt Whitman

(1819 - 1892)

Photograph of journalist, author, and professor Michael Pollan.

Michael Pollan

British author Mary Shelley.

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

(1797 - 1851)

Painted portrait of German naturalist and explorer Alexander von Humboldt.

Alexander von Humboldt

(1769 - 1859)

Alain de Lille

(c. 1128 - 1202)

American author Evan S. Connell.

Evan S. Connell

(1924 - 2013)

Color photograph of American writer Annie Dillard.

Annie Dillard

Steven Stoll

Photograph of British writer and journalist Simon Winchester.

Simon Winchester

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

John Berger

(1926 - 2017)

Andrew Jackson

(1767 - 1845)

Photograph of Native American author and educator Luther Standing Bear.

Luther Standing Bear

(1868 - 1939)

Photograph of American poet Countee Cullen.

Countee Cullen

(1903 - 1946)

Portrait bust of Roman poet Virgil.

Virgil

(70 BC - 19 BC)

Vitruvius

(c. 80 BC - 15 BC)

Smiling man with thin hair sticking out at a podium

James D. Watson

Black and white image of American writer Herman Melville.

Herman Melville

(1819 - 1891)

Portrait of English physicist and mathematician Isaac Newton.

Isaac Newton

(1643 - 1727)

English economist and demographer Thomas Malthus.

Thomas Malthus

(1766 - 1834)

English poet Edmund Spenser.

Edmund Spenser

(1552 - 1599)

Jules Verne

Jules Verne

(1828 - 1905)

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

Homer

(c. 800 BC - 725 BC)

American diplomat, scholar, and conservationist George Perkins Marsh.

George Perkins Marsh

(1801 - 1882)

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

Sigmund Freud

(1856 - 1949)

Edward Hoagland

Painting of William Wordsworth.

William Wordsworth

(1770 - 1850)

Italian artist, engineer, and scientist Leonardo da Vinci.

Leonardo da Vinci

(1452 - 1519)

Frederick Turner

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

Emily Dickinson

(1830 - 1886)

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

Michel de Montaigne

(1533 - 1592)

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

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

(1712 - 1778)

Painted portrait of English poet John Milton.

John Milton

(1608 - 1674)

Photograph of American biologist Edward O. Wilson.

Edward O. Wilson

Engraving of Roman author and administrator Pliny the Younger.

Pliny the Younger

(61 - 112)

Photograph of American writer and naturalist Henry Beston.

Henry Beston

(1888 - 1968)

Photograph of Rachel Carson

Rachel Carson

(1907 - 1964)

Lewis Lapham at his desk

Lewis H. Lapham

(1935 - 2024)

Portrait of third president of the United States Thomas Jefferson.

Thomas Jefferson

(1743 - 1826)

Ovid

(43 BC - c. 17)

Italian poet Dante Alighieri.

Dante Alighieri

(1265 - 1321)

David Quammen

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

Adolf Hitler

(1889 - 1945)

Loren Eiseley

(1907 - 1977)

Al Gore

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

Nathaniel Hawthorne

(1804 - 1864)

Image of English naturalist Charles Darwin.

Charles Darwin

(1809 - 1882)

Chris Rose

Sculpture bust of Greek historian Herodotus.

Herodotus

(c. 484 BC - c. 425 BC)

Photograph of American environmentalist Aldo Leopold.

Aldo Leopold

(1887 - 1948)

American poet Anne Bradstreet.

Anne Bradstreet

(c. 1612 - 1672)

Nicholas Barbon

(c. 1640 - 1698)

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

Marcus Tullius Cicero

(106 BC - 43 BC)

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

John Winthrop

(1588 - 1649)

Jonathan Swift

Jonathan Swift

(1667 - 1745)

English poet and satirist Alexander Pope.

Alexander Pope

(1688 - 1744)

Depiction of Plymouth colony governor William Bradford.

William Bradford

(1590 - 1657)

Jamaica Kincaid

Carl Sagan

(1934 - 1996)

Wang Wei

(701 - 761)

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

E.B. White

(1899 - 1985)

William Blake

(1757 - 1827)

French man of letters Denis Diderot.

Denis Diderot

(1713 - 1784)

Henry David Thoreau

Henry David Thoreau

(1817 - 1862)

American physicist Richard Feynman.

Richard Feynman

(1918 - 1988)

Giovanni Pico Della Mirandola

(1463 - 1494)

Color photograph of writer and editor Garret Keizer.

Garret Keizer

Novalis

(1772 - 1801)

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

J. Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur

(1735 - 1813)

Paracelsus

(1493 - 1541)

Image of medieval traveler Sir John Mandeville.

John Mandeville

(c. 1300 - 1371)

Engraving of a bust of Lucretius.

Lucretius

(c. 95 BC - c. 50 BC)

Engraving of Pliny the Elder.

Pliny the Elder

(23 - 79)

Man with a gray goatee wearing a checked shirt standing outdoors

Eric Schlosser

Lewis Thomas

(1913 - 1993)

Bill McKibben

Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés.

Hernán Cortés

(1485 - 1547)

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

Georges-Louis Leclerc, count de Buffon

(1707 - 1788)

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

Theodore Roosevelt

(1858 - 1919)

Image of Japanese haiku poet Matsuo Bashō.

Matsuo Basho

(1644 - 1694)