Curtis White

John Muir

(1838 - 1914)

British author Aldous Huxley.

Aldous Huxley

(1894 - 1963)

Steven Stoll

William Blake

(1757 - 1827)

American poet, journalist, and essayist Walt Whitman.

Walt Whitman

(1819 - 1892)

Painted portrait of English poet John Milton.

John Milton

(1608 - 1674)

Jonathan Swift

Jonathan Swift

(1667 - 1745)

Henry David Thoreau

Henry David Thoreau

(1817 - 1862)

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

Nathaniel Hawthorne

(1804 - 1864)

Immanuel Kant

(1724 - 1804)

Novalis

(1772 - 1801)

English poet Edmund Spenser.

Edmund Spenser

(1552 - 1599)

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

W.B. Yeats

(1865 - 1939)

Edward Hoagland

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

Homer

(c. 800 BC - 725 BC)

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

Friedrich Nietzsche

(1844 - 1900)

Engraving of William Shakespeare from the first folio edition.

William Shakespeare

(1564 - 1616)

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

John Winthrop

(1588 - 1649)

Photograph of Rachel Carson

Rachel Carson

(1907 - 1964)

Painting of William Wordsworth.

William Wordsworth

(1770 - 1850)

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

E.B. White

(1899 - 1985)

Image of Japanese haiku poet Matsuo Bashō.

Matsuo Basho

(1644 - 1694)

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

Emily Dickinson

(1830 - 1886)

Andrew Jackson

(1767 - 1845)

Photograph of American environmentalist Aldo Leopold.

Aldo Leopold

(1887 - 1948)

Paracelsus

(1493 - 1541)

Photograph of British writer and journalist Simon Winchester.

Simon Winchester

Painted portrait of German naturalist and explorer Alexander von Humboldt.

Alexander von Humboldt

(1769 - 1859)

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

Theodore Roosevelt

(1858 - 1919)

Portrait of English physicist and mathematician Isaac Newton.

Isaac Newton

(1643 - 1727)

Portrait of third president of the United States Thomas Jefferson.

Thomas Jefferson

(1743 - 1826)

Smiling man with thin hair sticking out at a podium

James D. Watson

Novelist and psychiatrist Daniel Mason.

Daniel Mason

Black and white image of American writer Herman Melville.

Herman Melville

(1819 - 1891)

Sculpture bust of Greek historian Herodotus.

Herodotus

(c. 484 BC - c. 425 BC)

Nicholas Barbon

(c. 1640 - 1698)

Engraving of a bust of Lucretius.

Lucretius

(c. 95 BC - c. 50 BC)

Ovid

(43 BC - c. 17)

Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés.

Hernán Cortés

(1485 - 1547)

American physicist Richard Feynman.

Richard Feynman

(1918 - 1988)

Alain de Lille

(c. 1128 - 1202)

Paul Gauguin

(1848 - 1903)

Charles Bowden

(1945 - 2014)

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

Michel de Montaigne

(1533 - 1592)

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

J. Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur

(1735 - 1813)

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

Sigmund Freud

(1856 - 1949)

Lewis Lapham at his desk

Lewis H. Lapham

(1935 - 2024)

Frederick Turner

Black and white photograph of American novelist John Steinbeck.

John Steinbeck

(1902 - 1968)

American poet Anne Bradstreet.

Anne Bradstreet

(c. 1612 - 1672)

Theocritus

(c. 300 BC - c. 260 BC)

Painting of Greek philosopher Heraclitus weeping over a globe.

Heraclitus

(c. 540 BC - c. 480 BC)

David Quammen

German writer and statesman Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

(1749 - 1832)

Edward Abbey

(1927 - 1989)

Bill McKibben

Image of English naturalist Charles Darwin.

Charles Darwin

(1809 - 1882)

Photograph of journalist, author, and professor Michael Pollan.

Michael Pollan

Vitruvius

(c. 80 BC - 15 BC)

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

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

(1712 - 1778)

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

Adolf Hitler

(1889 - 1945)

French man of letters Denis Diderot.

Denis Diderot

(1713 - 1784)

Jane Jacobs

(1916 - 2006)

Robinson Jeffers

(1887 - 1962)

Portrait bust of Roman poet Virgil.

Virgil

(70 BC - 19 BC)

Portrait of Francis Bacon in sixteenth-century armor.

Francis Bacon

(1561 - 1626)

Photograph of American poet Countee Cullen.

Countee Cullen

(1903 - 1946)

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

John Berger

(1926 - 2017)

Jules Verne

Jules Verne

(1828 - 1905)

Italian poet Dante Alighieri.

Dante Alighieri

(1265 - 1321)

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

H.G. Wells

(1866 - 1946)

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

Joseph Conrad

(1857 - 1924)

Depiction of Plymouth colony governor William Bradford.

William Bradford

(1590 - 1657)

Pretty-shield

(1856 - 1944)

Photograph of American novelist Jack London.

Jack London

(1876 - 1916)

Man with a gray goatee wearing a checked shirt standing outdoors

Eric Schlosser

Photograph of Native American author and educator Luther Standing Bear.

Luther Standing Bear

(1868 - 1939)

American author Evan S. Connell.

Evan S. Connell

(1924 - 2013)

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

Ralph Waldo Emerson

(1803 - 1882)

Frederick Jackson Turner

(1861 - 1932)

Engraving of Roman author and administrator Pliny the Younger.

Pliny the Younger

(61 - 112)

British author Mary Shelley.

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

(1797 - 1851)

John D. Rockefeller Jr.

(1874 - 1960)

Al Gore

Carl Sagan

(1934 - 1996)

Lewis Thomas

(1913 - 1993)

Color photograph of writer and editor Garret Keizer.

Garret Keizer

Photograph of American biologist Edward O. Wilson.

Edward O. Wilson

Giovanni Pico Della Mirandola

(1463 - 1494)

Wang Wei

(701 - 761)

Color photograph of American writer Annie Dillard.

Annie Dillard

Engraving of Pliny the Elder.

Pliny the Elder

(23 - 79)

Italian artist, engineer, and scientist Leonardo da Vinci.

Leonardo da Vinci

(1452 - 1519)

Jamaica Kincaid

American landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted.

Frederick Law Olmsted

(1822 - 1903)

American diplomat, scholar, and conservationist George Perkins Marsh.

George Perkins Marsh

(1801 - 1882)

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

Marcus Tullius Cicero

(106 BC - 43 BC)

D. Graham Burnett

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

Georges-Louis Leclerc, count de Buffon

(1707 - 1788)

Loren Eiseley

(1907 - 1977)

English economist and demographer Thomas Malthus.

Thomas Malthus

(1766 - 1834)

Photograph of American writer and naturalist Henry Beston.

Henry Beston

(1888 - 1968)

English poet and satirist Alexander Pope.

Alexander Pope

(1688 - 1744)

Chris Rose

Image of medieval traveler Sir John Mandeville.

John Mandeville

(c. 1300 - 1371)