Masha Gessen

Russian author Ivan Turgenev.

Ivan Turgenev

(1818 - 1883)

Maddalena Casulana

(c. 1544 - c. 1590)

Depiction of Greek lyric poet Sappho.

Sappho

(c. 610 BC - c. 570 BC)

Italian courtier, diplomat, and writer Baldassare Castiglione.

Baldassare Castiglione

(1478 - 1529)

Gita Mehta

Ludwig Wittgenstein

(1889 - 1951)

Pope John XXII

(1244 - 1334)

Xiaofei Tian

Grover Lewis

(1934 - 1995)

English essayist, poet, and dramatist Joseph Addison.

Joseph Addison

(1672 - 1719)

Alex Cuadros

Nicholas Spice

Don Asher

Alison Kinney

Es’kia Mphahlele

(1919 - 2008)

Portrait of third president of the United States Thomas Jefferson.

Thomas Jefferson

(1743 - 1826)

Ted Hughes

(1930 - 1998)

black and white pencil drawing of Moliere in an ornate frame

Molière

(1622 - 1673)

Clara Schumann

(1819 - 1896)

Aegidius of Zamora

(c. 1240 - c. 1320)

Hiraga Gennai

(1728 - 1779)

Thomas Bernhard

(1931 - 1989)

Louise Erdrich

Portrait of young Arthur Schopenhauer wearing a brown suit and a cravat.

Arthur Schopenhauer

(1788 - 1860)

American musician Charles Mingus.

Charles Mingus

(1922 - 1979)

W.C. Handy

(1873 - 1958)

Photograph of American literary critic George Steiner.

George Steiner

Alex Ross

Depiction of Greek philosopher Plato.

Plato

(c. 427 BC - c. 347 BC)

Richard Owen

(1922 - 2015)

Johann Sebastian Bach

(1685 - 1750)

Depiction of German abbess and mystic St. Hildegard.

Hildegard of Bingen

(1098 - 1179)

Image from an illuminated manuscript of Boethius teaching two students.

Boethius

(c. 480 - c. 524)

Alma Mahler-Werfel

(1879 - 1964)

Christopher Carroll

Photograph of African-American abolitionist and U.S. diplomat Frederick Douglass.

Frederick Douglass

(c. 1818 - 1895)

Steve Albini

American author, music journalist, and cultural critic Greil Marcus.

Greil Marcus

Statue of the Persian poet Ferdowsi.

Ferdowsi

(c. 935 - c. 1020)

Lü Buwei

(c. 291 BC - 235 BC)

John Cage

John Cage

(1912 - 1992)

Color drawing of Jane Austen sitting in a chair wearing a blue dress

Jane Austen

(1775 - 1817)

Jonathan Biss

Margaret Fuller

(1810 - 1850)

Alejo Carpentier

(1904 - 1980)

Apollonius of Rhodes

British author Lady Mary Wortley Montagu.

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu

(1689 - 1762)

Engraving of William Shakespeare from the first folio edition.

William Shakespeare

(1564 - 1616)

Jay-Z

Jimi Hendrix

(1942 - 1970)

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

Friedrich Nietzsche

(1844 - 1900)

Dorothy Baker

(1907 - 1968)

Engraving of Greek satirist Lucian.

Lucian

(125 - c. 180)

Erik Satie

(1866 - 1925)

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

Marcus Tullius Cicero

(106 BC - 43 BC)

Color portrait of Chinese writer and poet Han Yu.

Han Yu

(768 - 824)

Ethel Smyth

(1858 - 1944)

Geoffrey Philp

Black and white photograph of Colombian novelist Gabriel García Márquez.

Gabriel García Márquez

(1928 - 2014)

William Gaddis

(1922 - 1998)

John Corbett

George Bernard Shaw

(1856 - 1950)

Lewis Lapham at his desk

Lewis H. Lapham

Ouyang Xiu

(1007 - 1072)

Photograph of Soviet Russian writer and journalist Vasily Grossman.

Vasily Grossman

(1905 - 1964)

John Mainwaring

(1724 - 1807)

Black and white image of Greek biographer and writer Plutarch.

Plutarch

(46 - c. 120)

Irwin Silber

(1925 - 2010)

Carson McCullers

(1917 - 1967)

Diego Durán

(c. 1537 - 1588)

Color photograph of Egyptian Nobel Laureate Naguib Mahfouz.

Naguib Mahfouz

(1911 - 2006)

Nathaniel Mackey

Claude Debussy

(1862 - 1918)

American sociologist and reformer W. E. B. Du Bois.

W.E.B. Du Bois

(1868 - 1963)

Miniature portrait of monk, musician, poet, and librarian Notker the Stammerer.

Notker the Stammerer

(c. 840 - 912)

Jelly Roll Morton

(1890 - 1941)

Peter Sloterdijk

Benedetto Marcello

(1686 - 1739)

Luigi Russolo

(1885 - 1947)

Björk

Pascal Quignard