German writer and statesman Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

(1749 - 1832)

Photograph of American biologist Edward O. Wilson.

Edward O. Wilson

Lewis Thomas

(1913 - 1993)

Jules Verne

Jules Verne

(1828 - 1905)

Photograph of Rachel Carson

Rachel Carson

(1907 - 1964)

American author Evan S. Connell.

Evan S. Connell

(1924 - 2013)

Giovanni Pico Della Mirandola

(1463 - 1494)

Al Gore

Depiction of Plymouth colony governor William Bradford.

William Bradford

(1590 - 1657)

Jane Jacobs

(1916 - 2006)

Painting of Greek philosopher Heraclitus weeping over a globe.

Heraclitus

(c. 540 BC - c. 480 BC)

Curtis White

Italian poet Dante Alighieri.

Dante Alighieri

(1265 - 1321)

Sculpture bust of Greek historian Herodotus.

Herodotus

(c. 484 BC - c. 425 BC)

Black and white image of American writer Herman Melville.

Herman Melville

(1819 - 1891)

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

W.B. Yeats

(1865 - 1939)

Paracelsus

(1493 - 1541)

Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés.

Hernán Cortés

(1485 - 1547)

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

Michel de Montaigne

(1533 - 1592)

William Blake

(1757 - 1827)

Painted portrait of English poet John Milton.

John Milton

(1608 - 1674)

Charles Bowden

(1945 - 2014)

Engraving of Roman author and administrator Pliny the Younger.

Pliny the Younger

(61 - 112)

Jamaica Kincaid

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

John Berger

(1926 - 2017)

Andrew Jackson

(1767 - 1845)

Smiling man with thin hair sticking out at a podium

James D. Watson

English poet Edmund Spenser.

Edmund Spenser

(1552 - 1599)

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

Ralph Waldo Emerson

(1803 - 1882)

English poet and satirist Alexander Pope.

Alexander Pope

(1688 - 1744)

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

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

(1712 - 1778)

Novalis

(1772 - 1801)

Image of medieval traveler Sir John Mandeville.

John Mandeville

(c. 1300 - 1371)

Robinson Jeffers

(1887 - 1962)

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

John Winthrop

(1588 - 1649)

French man of letters Denis Diderot.

Denis Diderot

(1713 - 1784)

Jonathan Swift

Jonathan Swift

(1667 - 1745)

Engraving of William Shakespeare from the first folio edition.

William Shakespeare

(1564 - 1616)

Photograph of journalist, author, and professor Michael Pollan.

Michael Pollan

Novelist and psychiatrist Daniel Mason.

Daniel Mason

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

Adolf Hitler

(1889 - 1945)

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

Sigmund Freud

(1856 - 1949)

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

Homer

(c. 800 BC - 725 BC)

Image of English naturalist Charles Darwin.

Charles Darwin

(1809 - 1882)

Portrait of English physicist and mathematician Isaac Newton.

Isaac Newton

(1643 - 1727)

English economist and demographer Thomas Malthus.

Thomas Malthus

(1766 - 1834)

Photograph of American writer and naturalist Henry Beston.

Henry Beston

(1888 - 1968)

D. Graham Burnett

Lewis Lapham at his desk

Lewis H. Lapham

(1935 - 2024)

Portrait of third president of the United States Thomas Jefferson.

Thomas Jefferson

(1743 - 1826)

Portrait bust of Roman poet Virgil.

Virgil

(70 BC - 19 BC)

Engraving of Pliny the Elder.

Pliny the Elder

(23 - 79)

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

Friedrich Nietzsche

(1844 - 1900)

Alain de Lille

(c. 1128 - 1202)

Theocritus

(c. 300 BC - c. 260 BC)

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

Emily Dickinson

(1830 - 1886)

Man with a gray goatee wearing a checked shirt standing outdoors

Eric Schlosser

Immanuel Kant

(1724 - 1804)

Photograph of American environmentalist Aldo Leopold.

Aldo Leopold

(1887 - 1948)

Carl Sagan

(1934 - 1996)

Image of Japanese haiku poet Matsuo Bashō.

Matsuo Basho

(1644 - 1694)

Portrait of Francis Bacon in sixteenth-century armor.

Francis Bacon

(1561 - 1626)

American physicist Richard Feynman.

Richard Feynman

(1918 - 1988)

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

Theodore Roosevelt

(1858 - 1919)

Henry David Thoreau

Henry David Thoreau

(1817 - 1862)

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

J. Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur

(1735 - 1813)

Painted portrait of German naturalist and explorer Alexander von Humboldt.

Alexander von Humboldt

(1769 - 1859)

Italian artist, engineer, and scientist Leonardo da Vinci.

Leonardo da Vinci

(1452 - 1519)

Black and white photograph of American novelist John Steinbeck.

John Steinbeck

(1902 - 1968)

Ovid

(43 BC - c. 17)

Wang Wei

(701 - 761)

Photograph of British writer and journalist Simon Winchester.

Simon Winchester

Loren Eiseley

(1907 - 1977)

Pretty-shield

(1856 - 1944)

American diplomat, scholar, and conservationist George Perkins Marsh.

George Perkins Marsh

(1801 - 1882)

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

Joseph Conrad

(1857 - 1924)

Photograph of Native American author and educator Luther Standing Bear.

Luther Standing Bear

(1868 - 1939)

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

H.G. Wells

(1866 - 1946)

Vitruvius

(c. 80 BC - 15 BC)

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

Nathaniel Hawthorne

(1804 - 1864)

John Muir

(1838 - 1914)

Photograph of American poet Countee Cullen.

Countee Cullen

(1903 - 1946)

British author Mary Shelley.

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

(1797 - 1851)

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

E.B. White

(1899 - 1985)

Paul Gauguin

(1848 - 1903)

Frederick Turner

American landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted.

Frederick Law Olmsted

(1822 - 1903)

Color photograph of writer and editor Garret Keizer.

Garret Keizer

John D. Rockefeller Jr.

(1874 - 1960)

Frederick Jackson Turner

(1861 - 1932)

Steven Stoll

Photograph of American novelist Jack London.

Jack London

(1876 - 1916)

Nicholas Barbon

(c. 1640 - 1698)

Painting of William Wordsworth.

William Wordsworth

(1770 - 1850)

Edward Abbey

(1927 - 1989)

Bill McKibben

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

Georges-Louis Leclerc, count de Buffon

(1707 - 1788)

David Quammen

Engraving of a bust of Lucretius.

Lucretius

(c. 95 BC - c. 50 BC)

Color photograph of American writer Annie Dillard.

Annie Dillard

Edward Hoagland

British author Aldous Huxley.

Aldous Huxley

(1894 - 1963)

Chris Rose

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

Marcus Tullius Cicero

(106 BC - 43 BC)

American poet Anne Bradstreet.

Anne Bradstreet

(c. 1612 - 1672)

American poet, journalist, and essayist Walt Whitman.

Walt Whitman

(1819 - 1892)