Daniil Kharms looking serious with an intent stare

Daniil Kharms

(1905 - 1942)

Color portrait of English philosopher John Locke.

John Locke

(1632 - 1704)

Thomas Nashe

Thomas Nashe

(1567 - c. 1601)

Lewis Lapham at his desk

Lewis H. Lapham

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

Nathaniel Hawthorne

(1804 - 1864)

Greek dramatist Sophocles.

Sophocles

(c. 496 BC - 406 BC)

American lawyer Clarence Darrow.

Clarence Darrow

(1857 - 1938)

John Cheever

(1912 - 1982)

English novelist, essayist, and critic George Orwell.

George Orwell

(1903 - 1950)

Cesare Beccaria

(1738 - 1794)

British scholar and military officer T.E. Lawrence.

T.E. Lawrence

(1888 - 1935)

Book critic Michael Dirda.

Michael Dirda

Photograph of American novelist Willa Cather.

Willa Cather

(1873 - 1947)

Joan Didion

(1934 - 2021)

Ngugi wa Thiong’o

Ambrose Bierce

Ambrose Bierce

(1842 - c. 1914)

Classical engraving of Aristophanes with a long beard.

Aristophanes

(c. 446 BC - c. 386 BC)

Shirley Jackson

(1916 - 1965)

Saint Augustine (detail), by Philippe de Champaigne, c. 1645.

Saint Augustine

(354 - 430)

Sculpture bust of Greek historian Herodotus.

Herodotus

(c. 484 BC - c. 425 BC)

Richard I

(1157 - 1199)

Rick Perlstein

Engraving of William Shakespeare from the first folio edition.

William Shakespeare

(1564 - 1616)

American literary critic and novelist Elizabeth Hardwick.

Elizabeth Hardwick

(1916 - 2007)

Alex Haley

(1921 - 1992)

Colorized engraving of Voltaire wearing a wig.

Voltaire

(1694 - 1778)

Painting of Thomas Hobbes

Thomas Hobbes

(1588 - 1679)

Anna Akhmatova

(1889 - 1966)

Jean Genet

(1910 - 1986)

Félix Fénéon

(1861 - 1944)

English critic and author G. K. Chesterton.

G.K. Chesterton

(1874 - 1936)

Portrait of English essayist and critic Thomas De Quincey.

Thomas De Quincey

(1785 - 1859)

Woman with short gray hair seated with a book open in her lap

Maya Angelou

(1928 - 2014)

Black and white photograph of Mencken looking over his shoulder at the camera

H.L. Mencken

(1880 - 1956)

Black and white image of American writer Herman Melville.

Herman Melville

(1819 - 1891)

Color portrait of French radical Jacobin leader Maximilien de Robespierre.

Maximilien Robespierre

(1758 - 1794)

Nathaniel Rich

Péter Nádas

Ha Jin

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

Friedrich Nietzsche

(1844 - 1900)

Roman historian Sallust.

Sallust

(c. 86 BC - c. 34 BC)

Black and white photograph of African-American leader Malcolm X.

Malcolm X

(1925 - 1965)

Seamus Heaney, 1970. Photograph by Simon Garbutt.

Seamus Heaney

(1939 - 2013)

Livy

(c. 59 BC - c. 17)

Portrait of Fyodor Dostoevsky

Fyodor Dostoevsky

(1821 - 1881)

Charlie Chaplin

(1889 - 1977)

Photograph of American writer William S. Burroughs.

William S. Burroughs

(1914 - 1997)

Black and white photograph of political scientist and philosopher Hannah Arendt holding a cigarette.

Hannah Arendt

(1906 - 1975)

color oil painting of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in a red tunic with gray hair

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

(1756 - 1791)

Jack Henry Abbott

(1944 - 2002)

Black and white photograph of German-language writer Franz Kafka.

Franz Kafka

(1883 - 1924)

Russian author Yevgenia Semyonova Ginzburg.

Yevgenia Semyonova Ginzburg

(1904 - 1977)

French philosopher and historian Michel Foucault.

Michel Foucault

(1926 - 1984)

Haruki Murakami

Photograph of American novelist and screenwriter Raymond Chandler.

Raymond Chandler

(1888 - 1959)

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

(1918 - 2008)

Don DeLillo standing outside in a jacket, black and white photo

Don DeLillo

Black and white photograph of French novelist, essayist, and playwright Albert Camus.

Albert Camus

(1913 - 1960)

Ovid

(43 BC - c. 17)

Joseph Heller

Joseph Heller

(1923 - 1999)

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

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

(1712 - 1778)

Image of Japanese poet and essayist Yoshida Kenko.

Yoshida Kenko

(c. 1283 - c. 1351)

Cesare Lombroso

(1835 - 1909)

Black and white photograph of Italian writer and chemist Primo Levi.

Primo Levi

(1919 - 1987)

Black-and-white photograph of Martin Luther King Jr. with his right hand lifted

Martin Luther King Jr.

(1929 - 1968)

Matthew Power

(1974 - 2014)

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

Homer

(c. 800 BC - 725 BC)

Christopher Hitchens

(1949 - 2011)

Suetonius

(69 - c. 130)

Black and white photograph of French writer Victor Hugo.

Victor Hugo

(1802 - 1885)

Charles Taylor

Black and white photograph of Russian author Leo Tolstoy.

Leo Tolstoy

(1828 - 1910)

Saul Levitt

(1911 - 1977)

Painted portrait of English philosopher Jeremy Bentham.

Jeremy Bentham

(1748 - 1832)

Depiction of Greek philosopher Plato.

Plato

(c. 427 BC - c. 347 BC)

Dexter Filkins

Frontispiece for 1612-13 King James Bible.

The Bible

Norman Mailer

(1923 - 2007)