English poet and satirist Alexander Pope.

Alexander Pope

(1688 - 1744)

Photograph of Rachel Carson

Rachel Carson

(1907 - 1964)

D. Graham Burnett

Edward Abbey

(1927 - 1989)

Loren Eiseley

(1907 - 1977)

Engraving of Pliny the Elder.

Pliny the Elder

(23 - 79)

Carl Sagan

(1934 - 1996)

Engraving of William Shakespeare from the first folio edition.

William Shakespeare

(1564 - 1616)

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

Nathaniel Hawthorne

(1804 - 1864)

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)

American physicist Richard Feynman.

Richard Feynman

(1918 - 1988)

English economist and demographer Thomas Malthus.

Thomas Malthus

(1766 - 1834)

Paul Gauguin

(1848 - 1903)

Painted portrait of German naturalist and explorer Alexander von Humboldt.

Alexander von Humboldt

(1769 - 1859)

Robinson Jeffers

(1887 - 1962)

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

Georges-Louis Leclerc, count de Buffon

(1707 - 1788)

Photograph of American environmentalist Aldo Leopold.

Aldo Leopold

(1887 - 1948)

British author Aldous Huxley.

Aldous Huxley

(1894 - 1963)

Painting of William Wordsworth.

William Wordsworth

(1770 - 1850)

Alain de Lille

(c. 1128 - 1202)

Theocritus

(c. 300 BC - c. 260 BC)

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

John Berger

(1926 - 2017)

Photograph of journalist, author, and professor Michael Pollan.

Michael Pollan

Portrait of Francis Bacon in sixteenth-century armor.

Francis Bacon

(1561 - 1626)

Immanuel Kant

(1724 - 1804)

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

Friedrich Nietzsche

(1844 - 1900)

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

Theodore Roosevelt

(1858 - 1919)

Portrait of third president of the United States Thomas Jefferson.

Thomas Jefferson

(1743 - 1826)

Photograph of Native American author and educator Luther Standing Bear.

Luther Standing Bear

(1868 - 1939)

Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés.

Hernán Cortés

(1485 - 1547)

French man of letters Denis Diderot.

Denis Diderot

(1713 - 1784)

Ovid

(43 BC - c. 17)

Italian poet Dante Alighieri.

Dante Alighieri

(1265 - 1321)

Jules Verne

Jules Verne

(1828 - 1905)

Jonathan Swift

Jonathan Swift

(1667 - 1745)

Henry David Thoreau

Henry David Thoreau

(1817 - 1862)

Sculpture bust of Greek historian Herodotus.

Herodotus

(c. 484 BC - c. 425 BC)

Frederick Turner

Portrait of English physicist and mathematician Isaac Newton.

Isaac Newton

(1643 - 1727)

Color photograph of writer and editor Garret Keizer.

Garret Keizer

Engraving of a bust of Lucretius.

Lucretius

(c. 95 BC - c. 50 BC)

Chris Rose

Jane Jacobs

(1916 - 2006)

American author Evan S. Connell.

Evan S. Connell

(1924 - 2013)

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

Joseph Conrad

(1857 - 1924)

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

H.G. Wells

(1866 - 1946)

Lewis Lapham at his desk

Lewis H. Lapham

(1935 - 2024)

Edward Hoagland

Photograph of British writer and journalist Simon Winchester.

Simon Winchester

Novelist and psychiatrist Daniel Mason.

Daniel Mason

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

Adolf Hitler

(1889 - 1945)

German writer and statesman Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

(1749 - 1832)

Image of Japanese haiku poet Matsuo Bashō.

Matsuo Basho

(1644 - 1694)

Giovanni Pico Della Mirandola

(1463 - 1494)

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

Sigmund Freud

(1856 - 1949)

John Muir

(1838 - 1914)

Paracelsus

(1493 - 1541)

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

Homer

(c. 800 BC - 725 BC)

Andrew Jackson

(1767 - 1845)

Color photograph of American writer Annie Dillard.

Annie Dillard

David Quammen

Jamaica Kincaid

Painting of Greek philosopher Heraclitus weeping over a globe.

Heraclitus

(c. 540 BC - c. 480 BC)

Pretty-shield

(1856 - 1944)

American poet, journalist, and essayist Walt Whitman.

Walt Whitman

(1819 - 1892)

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

Emily Dickinson

(1830 - 1886)

Photograph of American biologist Edward O. Wilson.

Edward O. Wilson

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

E.B. White

(1899 - 1985)

Engraving of Roman author and administrator Pliny the Younger.

Pliny the Younger

(61 - 112)

Italian artist, engineer, and scientist Leonardo da Vinci.

Leonardo da Vinci

(1452 - 1519)

American diplomat, scholar, and conservationist George Perkins Marsh.

George Perkins Marsh

(1801 - 1882)

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

Michel de Montaigne

(1533 - 1592)

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

Marcus Tullius Cicero

(106 BC - 43 BC)

Portrait bust of Roman poet Virgil.

Virgil

(70 BC - 19 BC)

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

Ralph Waldo Emerson

(1803 - 1882)

Image of medieval traveler Sir John Mandeville.

John Mandeville

(c. 1300 - 1371)

Photograph of American poet Countee Cullen.

Countee Cullen

(1903 - 1946)

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

John Winthrop

(1588 - 1649)

Man with a gray goatee wearing a checked shirt standing outdoors

Eric Schlosser

English poet Edmund Spenser.

Edmund Spenser

(1552 - 1599)

Nicholas Barbon

(c. 1640 - 1698)

British author Mary Shelley.

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

(1797 - 1851)

Al Gore

Lewis Thomas

(1913 - 1993)

American poet Anne Bradstreet.

Anne Bradstreet

(c. 1612 - 1672)

Depiction of Plymouth colony governor William Bradford.

William Bradford

(1590 - 1657)

American landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted.

Frederick Law Olmsted

(1822 - 1903)

Black and white image of American writer Herman Melville.

Herman Melville

(1819 - 1891)

Black and white photograph of American novelist John Steinbeck.

John Steinbeck

(1902 - 1968)

Charles Bowden

(1945 - 2014)

John D. Rockefeller Jr.

(1874 - 1960)

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

W.B. Yeats

(1865 - 1939)

Vitruvius

(c. 80 BC - 15 BC)

Frederick Jackson Turner

(1861 - 1932)

Photograph of American novelist Jack London.

Jack London

(1876 - 1916)

Curtis White

William Blake

(1757 - 1827)

Bill McKibben

Photograph of American writer and naturalist Henry Beston.

Henry Beston

(1888 - 1968)

Novalis

(1772 - 1801)

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

J. Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur

(1735 - 1813)

Smiling man with thin hair sticking out at a podium

James D. Watson

Image of English naturalist Charles Darwin.

Charles Darwin

(1809 - 1882)

Steven Stoll

Wang Wei

(701 - 761)