Olivia Laing

John McPhee

French philosopher and historian Michel Foucault.

Michel Foucault

(1926 - 1984)

Anna Lenzer

Edward Abbey

(1927 - 1989)

Painted portrait of German naturalist and explorer Alexander von Humboldt.

Alexander von Humboldt

(1769 - 1859)

Graham Swift

Alexis Wright

John Snow

(1813 - 1858)

Kim Stanley Robinson

C.A. Davids

David Grann

Oscar Olivera

Annalee Jacoby

(1916 - 2002)

Engraving of Pliny the Elder.

Pliny the Elder

(23 - 79)

Mosaic portrait of a bearded man in red holding a book

Marco Polo

(1254 - 1324)

Engraving of Greek satirist Lucian.

Lucian

(125 - c. 180)

William Bullein

(c. 1515 - 1576)

Elias Khoury

Sextus Julius Frontinus

(c. 40 - 103)

Photograph of American novelist Mary Austin.

Mary Austin

(1868 - 1934)

Italian artist, engineer, and scientist Leonardo da Vinci.

Leonardo da Vinci

(1452 - 1519)

Fleur Adcock

John Thomas Stanley

(1766 - 1850)

French novelist Gustave Flaubert.

Gustave Flaubert

(1821 - 1880)

Gregory of Nyssa

(c. 335 - c. 395)

Theodore H. White

(1915 - 1986)

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

W.B. Yeats

(1865 - 1939)

Portrait bust of Roman poet Virgil.

Virgil

(70 BC - 19 BC)

Bartolomé de Las Casas

(1484 - 1566)

Idris Ali

(1940 - 2010)

Photograph of William Faulkner sitting in a chair.

William Faulkner

(1897 - 1962)

Paracelsus

(1493 - 1541)

Turkish author Orhan Pamuk.

Orhan Pamuk

Scottish novelist Tobias Smollett.

Tobias Smollett

(1721 - 1771)

Photograph of Rachel Carson

Rachel Carson

(1907 - 1964)

Claudio Magris, 2005. Photograph by Mariusz Kubik.

Claudio Magris

Wu Cheng’en

(c. 1500 - c. 1582)

Louise Erdrich

Wang Gai

(c. 1650 - c. 1710)

Jeff Goodell

Donovan Hohn

Photo of stone Aristotle statue face

Aristotle

(384 BC - 322 BC)

French author Émile Zola.

Émile Zola

(1840 - 1902)

Huynh Sanh Thong

(1926 - 2008)

Portrait of Francis Bacon in sixteenth-century armor.

Francis Bacon

(1561 - 1626)

François-René de Chateaubriand

(1768 - 1848)

Anna Jameson

(1794 - 1860)

Wilfred Thesiger

(1910 - 2003)

Li Daoyuan

(c. 472 - 527)

Cyrus Thomas

(1825 - 1910)

Joseph Brodsky

(1940 - 1996)

Scholastique Mukasonga

Scholastique Mukasonga

Jesmyn Ward

Anne Carson

Scottish anthropologist and historian of religion James G. Frazer.

James G. Frazer

(1854 - 1941)

Robert Towne

Carolina Maria de Jesus

(1914 - 1977)

Henry David Thoreau

Henry David Thoreau

(1817 - 1862)

Joan Didion

(1934 - 2021)

Antonie Van Leeuwenhoek

(1632 - 1723)

Rabindranath Tagore

(1861 - 1941)

Henry Pollack

Saint Teresa of Ávila.

Saint Teresa of Ávila

(1515 - 1582)

Ambai

Black and white photograph of a young Mark Twain with dark hair.

Mark Twain

(1835 - 1910)

Gabriel García Márquez

(1927 - 2014)

Wheel of Fortune from the Carmina Burana.

Carmina Burana

Philip Ball. Photograph by Richard Haughton.

Philip Ball

Sarah Ruden

Color photograph of American writer Annie Dillard.

Annie Dillard

Nicolas Pelham

Loren Eiseley

(1907 - 1977)

Decimus Magnus Ausonius

(c. 310 - c. 395)

Jonathan Watts

Bernard De Voto

(1897 - 1955)

Solomon Northup

(c. 1807 - c. 1857)

Engraving of the medieval Arab traveler Ibn Battuta.

Ibn Battuta

(1304 - c. 1369)

A.R. Ammons

(1926 - 2001)

Ur-Nammu

(2112 BC - 2095 BC)

Color portrait of Chinese writer and poet Han Yu.

Han Yu

(768 - 824)

W.J. McGee

(1853 - 1912)