Clive James

(1939 - 2019)

Bryan Burrough

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

Mark Twain

(1835 - 1910)

American writer Philip Roth.

Philip Roth

(1933 - 2018)

James Melville

(1535 - 1617)

Josephine Turpin Washington

(1861 - 1949)

Peter Kimani

Sculpture bust of Greek dramatist Euripides.

Euripides

(c. 484 BC - c. 406 BC)

Joanne B. Freeman

Wilfrid Sheed

(1930 - 2011)

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

Michel de Montaigne

(1533 - 1592)

Photograph of English novelist Charles Dickens.

Charles Dickens

(1812 - 1870)

Roman general and ruler Julius Caesar.

Julius Caesar

(c. 100 BC - 44 BC)

John Helyar

Photograph of Oodergoo Noonuccal

Oodgeroo Noonuccal

(1920 - 1993)

Jacob Black-Michaud

(1938 - 1985)

Dorothy Carrington

(1910 - 2002)

Valerie Solanas

(1936 - 1988)

Nawal El Saadawi

(1931 - 2021)

Aimé Césaire

(1913 - 2008)

Matthew Josephson

(1899 - 1978)

Roberto Saviano

Edwin Forrest

(1806 - 1872)

Portrait of English writer Mary Wollstonecraft.

Mary Wollstonecraft

(1759 - 1797)

Raoul Felder

Jonathan Swift

Jonathan Swift

(1667 - 1745)

A. Philip Randolph

(1889 - 1979)

William of Newburgh

(1136 - c. 1198)

Lewis Lapham at his desk

Lewis H. Lapham

(1935 - 2024)

Photograph of American short-story writer and poet Edgar Allan Poe.

Edgar Allan Poe

(1809 - 1849)

Painted portrait of English poet John Milton.

John Milton

(1608 - 1674)

Black and white image of American writer Herman Melville.

Herman Melville

(1819 - 1891)

Statue depicting Roman orator and historian Tacitus.

Tacitus

(56 - c. 120)

British author Aldous Huxley.

Aldous Huxley

(1894 - 1963)

b&w photograph of Octavio Paz in a crowd

Octavio Paz

(1914 - 1998)

Ryunosuke Akutagawa

(1892 - 1927)

Edmund Yates

(1831 - 1894)

Russian author Anton Chekhov.

Anton Chekhov

(1860 - 1904)

Oskar Morgenstern

(1902 - 1977)

Cecco Angiolieri

(c. 1260 - c. 1312)

John Herrman

Okado Denpachiro

(1659 - 1723)

Black and white photograph of French mystic, philosopher, and activist Simone Weil.

Simone Weil

(1909 - 1943)

Color portrait of Russian poet, novelist, and dramatist Aleksandr Pushkin.

Aleksandr Pushkin

(1799 - 1837)

Portrait of communist theorist and agitator Leon Trotsky.

Leon Trotsky

(1879 - 1940)

Florentine sculptor and writer Benvenuto Cellini.

Benvenuto Cellini

(1500 - 1571)

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

Jane Austen

(1775 - 1817)

Isabel Allende

Portrait of Francis Bacon in sixteenth-century armor.

Francis Bacon

(1561 - 1626)

Black and white image of Roman philosopher and statesman Seneca the Younger.

Seneca the Younger

(4 BC - 65)

Painting of humanist and scholar Erasmus.

Erasmus

(1466 - 1536)

Notorious B.I.G. (© MediaPunch Inc./Alamy Stock Photo)

The Notorious B.I.G.

(1972 - 1997)

Photograph of Andrew Carnegie

Andrew Carnegie

(1835 - 1919)

Bust of Hesiod

Hesiod

Photograph of Jim Holt looking at a book.

Jim Holt

Jean Hatzfeld

Alice Goffman

Nadine Gordimer

(1923 - 2014)

Ahmad Ibn Burd al-Asghar

(c. 1005 - c. 1054)

Nisid Hajari

Henry Turberville

(c. 1607 - 1678)

Napoleon A. Jennings

(1856 - 1919)

John von Neumann

(1903 - 1957)

Color portrait of the Italian writer and libertine Giacomo Casanova.

Giacomo Casanova

(1725 - 1798)

D.W. Yandell

(1898 - 1826)

Hua Hsu

Hua Hsu

Eliza Haywood

(c. 1693 - 1756)

Walter Map

(c. 1140 - c. 1209)

Statue of French medieval poet and historian Jean Froissart.

Jean Froissart

(c. 1337 - c. 1405)

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

Saint Augustine

(354 - 430)

Amanda Petrusich

William Makepeace Thackeray

(1811 - 1863)

Engraving of William Shakespeare from the first folio edition.

William Shakespeare

(1564 - 1616)

Black and white photograph of American novelist John Steinbeck.

John Steinbeck

(1902 - 1968)

Franklin Pierce Adams

(1881 - 1960)

Jayne Anne Phillips

Hilary Mantel

(1952 - 2022)

Zora Neale Hurston

(1891 - 1960)

Marble bust of a bearded man

Demosthenes

(384 BC - 322 BC)

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

Sigmund Freud

(1856 - 1949)

Mulay al-Walid

(c. 1588 - 1636)