This richly illustrated gift book showcases 100 portraits of writers, authors and essayists held in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery, London, from William Shakespeare to Malala Yousafzai. An illustrated introductory text looks at the relationship between the written word and visual arts.

100 Writers includes 16th-century works through to contemporary portraits, with a focus on writers who have made an important contribution to a number of areas such as literature, history, philosophy and politics, bringing varied disciplines and periods into one publication. Select works are also accompanied by quotations taken from interviews, essays and the sitter’s most acclaimed works.

Featured writers include Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, William Shakespeare, George Eliot, Zadie Smith, Stephen Hawking, Virginia Woolf, George Orwell, Sylvia Plath, Harold Pinter, Jean Rhys, Kazuo Ishiguro, Roald Dahl, Carol Ann Duffy, Malala Yousafzai, Charles Darwin, Emily Brontë and Samuel Pepys.