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Key People

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

German author

Mark Twain

Mark Twain

American writer

Portrait of Charles Dickens seated at a desk, writing with a quill pen, dressed in a suit with a bow tie.

Charles Dickens

British novelist

Painting of Samuel Johnson showing Johnson seated at a desk with a quill in hand and papers before him, wearing a brown coat and white wig.

Samuel Johnson

English author

Francis Bacon

Francis Bacon

British author, philosopher, and statesman

William Blake

William Blake

English engraver, artist, and poet

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Swiss-born French philosopher

Virginia Woolf

Virginia Woolf

British writer

Jonathan Swift

Jonathan Swift

Anglo-Irish author and clergyman

William Butler Yeats seated, wearing round glasses and a textured jacket, looking directly at the camera in a black and white portrait from around 1923.

William Butler Yeats

Irish author and poet

George Orwell, c. 1940

George Orwell

British author

Engraved portrait of Michel de Montaigne wearing a ruffled collar and ornate Renaissance clothing, facing forward with a neutral expression.

Michel de Montaigne

French writer and philosopher

Henry David Thoreau

Henry David Thoreau

American writer

Oil portrait by John Trumbull of Alexander Hamilton, shown from the waist up in a tan coat and white cravat, gazing to his left against a dark background.

Alexander Hamilton

American statesman

D.H. Lawrence

D.H. Lawrence

English writer

Charles Baudelaire

Charles Baudelaire

French author

John Ruskin

John Ruskin

English writer and artist

Frederick Douglass

Frederick Douglass

American abolitionist, orator, publisher, and author

Michel Foucault

Michel Foucault

French philosopher and historian

James Joyce wearing a dark suit, light tie, round glasses, and a hat, looking to the side outdoors in Zurich, Switzerland.

James Joyce

Irish author