Spot the Famous Author—Photo Face-Off (1)

[B] Fyodor Dostoevsky | That intense, haunted stare and wild beard screamed existential crisis before it was trendy. His characters suffer beautifully while readers argue about free will over coffee.

[C] Dante Alighieri | The laurel crown and eagle nose made medieval portraits unmistakable. He turned getting dumped by Beatrice into literature's most elaborate revenge fantasy tour.

[B] Lev Tolstoy | That patriarchal beard could shelter small wildlife, matching his epic novels' length. He wrote War and Peace, then decided happiness meant making shoes.

[C] Victor Hugo | Those thundercloud eyebrows and granite jaw launched a thousand romantic rebellions. He made Notre-Dame's hunchback more famous than the cathedral itself.

[B] William Shakespeare | The Chandos portrait's earring and receding hairline became history's most valuable mugshot. He invented 1,700 words while making your high school years dramatic.

[D] Johann Wolfgang von Goethe | That serene classical profile belonged to Germany's Renaissance man extraordinaire. Young Werther's sorrows launched Europe's first emo movement, complete with copycat outfits.

[D] Miguel de Cervantes y Saavedra | The ruff collar and pointed beard marked Spain's one-handed wonder. Lost his left hand in battle, then wrote Don Quixote mostly with his right.

[A] Italo Calvino | Those sharp, inquisitive features matched his labyrinthine imagination perfectly. He made readers fall in love with invisible cities and nonexistent knights simultaneously.

[C] Stendhal | Clean-shaven with neat sideburns, he looked every inch the diplomatic dandy. Invented the psychological novel while documenting his 100+ crushes in excruciating detail.

[B] Charles Baudelaire | That thin mustache and penetrating gaze epitomized Parisian decadence. He found beauty in rotting corpses and made modern poetry deliciously uncomfortable.

[D] Marcel Proust | Delicate mustache, melancholic eyes—the face of someone who'd spend 3,000 pages remembering a cookie. His cork-lined bedroom produced literature's longest sentence.

[B] Giovanni Boccaccio | Medieval portraits show his laureled head and knowing smile. The Decameron proved people telling dirty stories during plagues isn't just a modern thing.

[C] Aleksandr Pushkin | Those wild curls and dramatic sideburns embodied Romantic rebellion. Russia's Shakespeare died in a duel over his wife, peak 19th-century drama.

[B] Jalaluddin Muhammad Rumi | That flowing beard and turban marked mysticism's dancing poet. Whirled his way to enlightenment, literally spinning profound wisdom for 800 years.

[A] Franz Kafka | Those hollow cheeks and anxious eyes predicted bureaucratic nightmares. Wanted his manuscripts burned; instead became everyone's favorite existential crisis adjective.

[A] Anton Chekhov | Pince-nez glasses and neat goatee—the physician who diagnosed society's ailments. Claimed medicine was his wife, literature his mistress; both got equal attention.

[C] Gabriel García Márquez | That magnificent mustache hosted magical realism's headquarters. Made readers believe in rain lasting four years and butterflies triggering household apocalypses.

[D] Umberto Eco | High forehead and scholarly intensity marked the semiotics professor turned bestseller. Proved medieval monks, murder mysteries, and philosophy could coexist profitably.

[D] J.R.R. Tolkien | Pipe-smoking Oxford don with eyebrows suggesting hidden knowledge. Created entire languages for fun, then built Middle-earth around them as an afterthought.

[C] William Faulkner | Distinguished mustache, bourbon-weathered features of Mississippi's Nobel laureate. Wrote sentences so long readers needed trail maps and oxygen tanks.

[C] Aesop | Ancient busts show thoughtful features befitting history's moralizing storyteller. Enslaved man who proved talking animals teach better lessons than most humans.

[A] Arthur Rimbaud | Tousled hair and rebellious youth captured in few surviving photos. Revolutionized poetry by 19, quit at 21, sold guns in Africa instead.

[B] Aristophanes | Classical beard framed the face of Athens' comedy king. Made ancient Greeks laugh at politicians using fart jokes—some things never change.

[C] Ivan Turgenev | Gentle eyes and distinguished beard marked Russia's European gentleman. Spent decades in love with an opera singer, settling for friendship and beautiful suffering.

[D] Sophocles | Full philosopher's beard suited tragedy's master architect. Wrote Oedipus, history's worst family reunion, proving mother issues existed before Freud.

[A] Molière | Theatrical portraits capture his animated features and performer's charisma. Died onstage playing a hypochondriac—the universe's darkest comedy callback.

[A] Charles Dickens | Wild beard and intense gaze of Victorian literature's rock star. Walked 20 miles daily, named characters like Wackford Squeers, and made orphans profitable.

[D] Maxim Gorky | Distinctive mustache crowned the face of Russia's bitter revolutionary. His pen name meant "bitter"—matched his prose and Stalin dinner conversations.

[D] George Orwell | Thin mustache and tuberculosis-hollowed cheeks marked dystopia's prophet. Fought fascists in Spain, wrote 1984 while dying, still trending on Twitter.

[A] Edgar Allan Poe | Dark eyes and prominent forehead housed America's beautiful darkness. Married his 13-year-old cousin, invented detective fiction, died mysteriously in Baltimore.