An Chongbok

(1712 - 1791)

Nawal El Saadawi

(1931 - 2021)

Painted portrait of British explorer James Cook.

James Cook

(1728 - 1779)

Frank Harris

(1856 - 1931)

Julien Offray de La Mettrie

(1709 - 1751)

Blaise Cendrars

(1887 - 1961)

Painting of François Rabelais.

François Rabelais

(1494 - 1553)

Barry Bonds

American novelist Upton Sinclair.

Upton Sinclair

(1878 - 1968)

French man of letters Denis Diderot.

Denis Diderot

(1713 - 1784)

Joris-Karl Huysmans

(1848 - 1907)

American poet, journalist, and essayist Walt Whitman.

Walt Whitman

(1819 - 1892)

Jean Genet

(1910 - 1986)

Silvina Ocampo

(1903 - 1993)

Frantz Fanon

(1925 - 1961)

Sculpture bust of Greek historian Herodotus.

Herodotus

(c. 484 BC - c. 425 BC)

Arnobius the Elder

(c. 250 - c. 330)

French author Émile Zola.

Émile Zola

(1840 - 1902)

Giovanni Della Casa

(1503 - 1556)

Juliet Jacques.

Juliet Jacques

Cennino Cennini

(c. 1360 - c. 1426)

Giambattista Basile

(1575 - 1632)

Depiction of Persian mathematician and poet Omar Khayyam.

Omar Khayyam

(1048 - 1131)

American author and educator Helen Keller.

Helen Keller

(1880 - 1968)

John Williams

(1922 - 1994)

Jillian Weise

Black and white image of American writer Herman Melville.

Herman Melville

(1819 - 1891)

Jan Morris

(1926 - 2020)

Czech writer Bohumil Hrabal.

Bohumil Hrabal

(1914 - 1997)

Engraving of William Shakespeare from the first folio edition.

William Shakespeare

(1564 - 1616)

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

Saint Augustine

(354 - 430)

Comte de Lautréamont

(1846 - 1870)

Maureen Gibbon

French author the Marquis de Sade.

Marquis de Sade

(1740 - 1814)

Mikhail Bakhtin

(1895 - 1975)

Giorgio Agamben

Richard Morton

(1637 - 1798)

Color photograph of American writer Annie Dillard.

Annie Dillard

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

Franz Kafka

(1883 - 1924)

David Cronenberg

Audre Lorde

(1934 - 1992)

Noga Arikha

Alex Kuczynski

Black and white photograph of D.H. Lawrence with arms crossed.

D.H. Lawrence

(1885 - 1930)

Lewis Lapham at his desk

Lewis H. Lapham

(1935 - 2024)

Jewish philosopher, jurist, and physician Moses Maimonides.

Moses Maimonides

(1135 - 1204)

John O. Roe

(1849 - 1915)

Elias Canetti

(1905 - 1994)

Joyce Carol Oates

Hilary Mantel

(1952 - 2022)

Harry Crews

(1935 - 2012)

Black and white photograph of American poet and novelist Sylvia Plath.

Sylvia Plath

(1932 - 1963)

Peter von Ziegesar.

Peter von Ziegesar

Black and white photograph of German novelist and essayist Thomas Mann.

Thomas Mann

(1875 - 1955)

Black and white photograph of French novelist, playwright, and philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre.

Jean-Paul Sartre

(1905 - 1980)

Kai Kaus ibn Iskandar

(c. 1020 - 1090)

Photograph of Marguerite Yourcenar with a headscarf sitting in a chair outside.

Marguerite Yourcenar

(1903 - 1987)

Lucy Ives.

Lucy Ives

Blaise Pascal

(1623 - 1662)

Russian author Anton Chekhov.

Anton Chekhov

(1860 - 1904)

Japanese author Tanizaki Juni’chirō.

Junichiro Tanizaki

(1886 - 1965)

Lisa Jean Moore

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

Michel de Montaigne

(1533 - 1592)

Image of Platonic philosopher, rhetorician, and author Lucius Apuleius.

Lucius Apuleius

(c. 124 - c. 171)

Robert F. Murphy

(1924 - 1990)

Robert Farrar Capon

(1925 - 2013)

Black and white image of Greek biographer and writer Plutarch.

Plutarch

(46 - c. 120)

Wole Soyinka

Laura Kipnis

Johann Winckelmann

(1717 - 1768)

Polish-born American writer Isaac Bashevis Singer.

Isaac Bashevis Singer

(1903 - 1991)

Depiction of Greek philosopher Plato.

Plato

(c. 427 BC - c. 347 BC)

Lucille Clifton

(1936 - 2010)

Photograph of American novelist and writer Flannery O’Connor.

Flannery O’Connor

(1925 - 1964)