Black and white image of English scholar, writer, and clergyman Robert Burton.

Robert Burton

(1577 - 1640)

Painted portrait of Florentine statesman and philosopher Niccolò Machiavelli.

Niccolò Machiavelli

(1469 - 1527)

Saul Friedländer

Color photograph of Czech playwright, poet, and political dissident Václav Havel.

Václav Havel

(1936 - 2011)

Nadine Gordimer

(1923 - 2014)

Marilynne Robinson

Frontispiece for 1612-13 King James Bible.

The Bible

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

Marcus Tullius Cicero

(106 BC - 43 BC)

Atiq Rahimi

Black and white photograph of Austrian writer Stefan Zweig.

Stefan Zweig

(1881 - 1942)

Walter Cannon

(1871 - 1945)

Engraving of William Shakespeare from the first folio edition.

William Shakespeare

(1564 - 1616)

Susan Brownmiller

J. Hoberman

E.M. Cioran

(1911 - 1995)

German writer, composer, and painter E. T. A. Hoffmann.

E.T.A. Hoffmann

(1776 - 1822)

Painted portrait of British statesman and political thinker Edmund Burke.

Edmund Burke

(1729 - 1797)

Margery Kempe

(c. 1373 - c. 1438)

Woodrow Wilson

(1856 - 1924)

Emma Reyes

(1919 - 2003)

Marbod of Rennes

(c. 1035 - 1123)

Image of English naturalist Charles Darwin.

Charles Darwin

(1809 - 1882)

John G. Neihardt

(1881 - 1973)

Diego Durán

(c. 1537 - 1588)

Hannah Crafts

(c. 1830 - c. 1880)

Subcomandante Marcos

Atticus Lish

James Baldwin

(1924 - 1987)

Dorothy Thompson

(1893 - 1961)

Steve Biko

(1946 - 1977)

Suetonius

(69 - c. 130)

Mario Vargas Llosa

French philosopher and historian Michel Foucault.

Michel Foucault

(1926 - 1984)

Richard Hofstadter

(1916 - 1970)

Joseph Heller

Joseph Heller

(1923 - 1999)

Central Intelligence Agency

Lewis Lapham at his desk

Lewis H. Lapham

William Sloane

(1906 - 1974)

Ernst Bloch

(1885 - 1977)

M.R. James

(1862 - 1936)

Jerome D. Frank

(1909 - 2005)

Portrait of Alexis de Tocqueville wearing a black suit and standing in front of a chair.

Alexis de Tocqueville

(1805 - 1859)

Color portrait of English philosopher John Locke.

John Locke

(1632 - 1704)

English novelist, essayist, and critic George Orwell.

George Orwell

(1903 - 1950)

Ihara Saikaku

(1642 - 1693)

Ibn Khalawayh

(c. 900 - c. 980)

He-Yin Zhen

(c. 1884 - c. 1920)

Andrés Bernáldez

(1450 - 1513)

Jorge Amado (AF archive/Alamy Stock Photo)

Jorge Amado

(1912 - 2001)

Photograph of American writer and professor Paul Collins.

Paul Collins

Wole Soyinka

Judith N. Shklar

(1928 - 1992)

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

Sigmund Freud

(1856 - 1949)

Ivan Vladislavić

Color portrait of French radical Jacobin leader Maximilien de Robespierre.

Maximilien Robespierre

(1758 - 1794)

Shannon Gibney

Hama Tuma

Philippe Petit

Hans Erich Nossack

(1901 - 1977)

Photo of stone Aristotle statue face

Aristotle

(384 BC - 322 BC)

Tadeusz Borowski

(1922 - 1951)

Andrew Grove

(1936 - 2016)

Photograph of American novelist and short story writer Stephen Crane.

Stephen Crane

(1871 - 1900)

Luisa Valenzuela

Edwidge Danticat

Suki Kim

William Dean Howells

(1837 - 1920)

Engraving of a bearded man seated with a crutch and writing at a desk

Epictetus

(c. 55 - c. 135)

American author H.P. Lovecraft.

H.P. Lovecraft

(1890 - 1937)

Painting of Thomas Hobbes

Thomas Hobbes

(1588 - 1679)

Pausanias

(c. 110 - c. 180)

Charles Simic

Portrait bust of Greek dramatist Aeschylus.

Aeschylus

(c. 525 BC - 456 BC)

Arthur Koestler

(1905 - 1983)

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

Edgar Allan Poe

(1809 - 1849)

English poet and novelist Siegfried Sassoon.

Siegfried Sassoon

(1886 - 1967)

Ida B. Wells-Barnett

(1862 - 1931)

Portrait of Fyodor Dostoevsky

Fyodor Dostoevsky

(1821 - 1881)

Paul Tillich

(1886 - 1965)

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

Theodore Roosevelt

(1858 - 1919)

Painting of a man with shoulder-length curly hair wearing a white square collar

Benedict de Spinoza

(1632 - 1677)

Author and journalist Caroline Alexander.

Caroline Alexander

Patrick J. McGinnis