Man with a gray goatee wearing a checked shirt standing outdoors

Eric Schlosser

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

H.G. Wells

(1866 - 1946)

Bill McKibben

Painted portrait of English poet John Milton.

John Milton

(1608 - 1674)

Paracelsus

(1493 - 1541)

D. Graham Burnett

British author Aldous Huxley.

Aldous Huxley

(1894 - 1963)

American author Evan S. Connell.

Evan S. Connell

(1924 - 2013)

Italian poet Dante Alighieri.

Dante Alighieri

(1265 - 1321)

Lewis Thomas

(1913 - 1993)

Jane Jacobs

(1916 - 2006)

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

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

(1712 - 1778)

Edward Abbey

(1927 - 1989)

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

Sigmund Freud

(1856 - 1949)

American landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted.

Frederick Law Olmsted

(1822 - 1903)

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

Georges-Louis Leclerc, count de Buffon

(1707 - 1788)

Engraving of Pliny the Elder.

Pliny the Elder

(23 - 79)

Image of English naturalist Charles Darwin.

Charles Darwin

(1809 - 1882)

American poet Anne Bradstreet.

Anne Bradstreet

(c. 1612 - 1672)

Painting of Greek philosopher Heraclitus weeping over a globe.

Heraclitus

(c. 540 BC - c. 480 BC)

American diplomat, scholar, and conservationist George Perkins Marsh.

George Perkins Marsh

(1801 - 1882)

Giovanni Pico Della Mirandola

(1463 - 1494)

American physicist Richard Feynman.

Richard Feynman

(1918 - 1988)

Jonathan Swift

Jonathan Swift

(1667 - 1745)

Henry David Thoreau

Henry David Thoreau

(1817 - 1862)

Paul Gauguin

(1848 - 1903)

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

John Winthrop

(1588 - 1649)

Theocritus

(c. 300 BC - c. 260 BC)

American poet, journalist, and essayist Walt Whitman.

Walt Whitman

(1819 - 1892)

English poet and satirist Alexander Pope.

Alexander Pope

(1688 - 1744)

Andrew Jackson

(1767 - 1845)

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

Friedrich Nietzsche

(1844 - 1900)

Sculpture bust of Greek historian Herodotus.

Herodotus

(c. 484 BC - c. 425 BC)

Nicholas Barbon

(c. 1640 - 1698)

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

Emily Dickinson

(1830 - 1886)

English poet Edmund Spenser.

Edmund Spenser

(1552 - 1599)

John Muir

(1838 - 1914)

Frederick Jackson Turner

(1861 - 1932)

Portrait of third president of the United States Thomas Jefferson.

Thomas Jefferson

(1743 - 1826)

Curtis White

Chris Rose

Photograph of American environmentalist Aldo Leopold.

Aldo Leopold

(1887 - 1948)

Al Gore

German writer and statesman Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

(1749 - 1832)

Lewis Lapham at his desk

Lewis H. Lapham

(1935 - 2024)

Loren Eiseley

(1907 - 1977)

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

Joseph Conrad

(1857 - 1924)

Image of Japanese haiku poet Matsuo Bashō.

Matsuo Basho

(1644 - 1694)

Image of medieval traveler Sir John Mandeville.

John Mandeville

(c. 1300 - 1371)

William Blake

(1757 - 1827)

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

Nathaniel Hawthorne

(1804 - 1864)

Jamaica Kincaid

Photograph of American poet Countee Cullen.

Countee Cullen

(1903 - 1946)

Portrait of English physicist and mathematician Isaac Newton.

Isaac Newton

(1643 - 1727)

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

J. Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur

(1735 - 1813)

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

Michel de Montaigne

(1533 - 1592)

Charles Bowden

(1945 - 2014)

Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés.

Hernán Cortés

(1485 - 1547)

Photograph of journalist, author, and professor Michael Pollan.

Michael Pollan

Novelist and psychiatrist Daniel Mason.

Daniel Mason

Photograph of American writer and naturalist Henry Beston.

Henry Beston

(1888 - 1968)

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

W.B. Yeats

(1865 - 1939)

Photograph of British writer and journalist Simon Winchester.

Simon Winchester

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

Theodore Roosevelt

(1858 - 1919)

Vitruvius

(c. 80 BC - 15 BC)

Portrait of Francis Bacon in sixteenth-century armor.

Francis Bacon

(1561 - 1626)

Smiling man with thin hair sticking out at a podium

James D. Watson

Alain de Lille

(c. 1128 - 1202)

Portrait bust of Roman poet Virgil.

Virgil

(70 BC - 19 BC)

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

John Berger

(1926 - 2017)

Photograph of Rachel Carson

Rachel Carson

(1907 - 1964)

Photograph of American biologist Edward O. Wilson.

Edward O. Wilson

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)

English economist and demographer Thomas Malthus.

Thomas Malthus

(1766 - 1834)

British author Mary Shelley.

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

(1797 - 1851)

Wang Wei

(701 - 761)

Novalis

(1772 - 1801)

Photograph of Native American author and educator Luther Standing Bear.

Luther Standing Bear

(1868 - 1939)

Robinson Jeffers

(1887 - 1962)

Engraving of Roman author and administrator Pliny the Younger.

Pliny the Younger

(61 - 112)

Frederick Turner

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

Homer

(c. 800 BC - 725 BC)

John D. Rockefeller Jr.

(1874 - 1960)

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

Marcus Tullius Cicero

(106 BC - 43 BC)

Jules Verne

Jules Verne

(1828 - 1905)

Painted portrait of German naturalist and explorer Alexander von Humboldt.

Alexander von Humboldt

(1769 - 1859)

Color photograph of American writer Annie Dillard.

Annie Dillard

Color photograph of writer and editor Garret Keizer.

Garret Keizer

Black and white image of American writer Herman Melville.

Herman Melville

(1819 - 1891)

French man of letters Denis Diderot.

Denis Diderot

(1713 - 1784)

Engraving of a bust of Lucretius.

Lucretius

(c. 95 BC - c. 50 BC)

Black and white photograph of American novelist John Steinbeck.

John Steinbeck

(1902 - 1968)

Italian artist, engineer, and scientist Leonardo da Vinci.

Leonardo da Vinci

(1452 - 1519)

Immanuel Kant

(1724 - 1804)

Depiction of Plymouth colony governor William Bradford.

William Bradford

(1590 - 1657)

Pretty-shield

(1856 - 1944)

Edward Hoagland

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

E.B. White

(1899 - 1985)

Painting of William Wordsworth.

William Wordsworth

(1770 - 1850)

Carl Sagan

(1934 - 1996)

Steven Stoll

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

Adolf Hitler

(1889 - 1945)

Photograph of American novelist Jack London.

Jack London

(1876 - 1916)

David Quammen

Ovid

(43 BC - c. 17)