Among the Familiars of Wittgenstein's Mistress

Artemisia Gentileschi, who was not taught to read or write.

Giotto, because he could draw a perfect circle, or at least it is harmless to think he could. 

Michelangelo, who did not wash and was thus probably hard to sit close to, though Kate later thinks this harsh and claims she would shake his hand. 

Anna Akhmatova, who is assigned a role in Anna Karenina. 

Marina Tsvetayeva, who kills herself. 

John Ruskin, who recoils upon discovering his wife (read: women) has pubic hair. 

Brahms, who may or may not have carried candy in his pockets to give to children, of which he had none of his own. 

Sor Juana Inez de la Cruz, most famous for being from Mexico, where Kate’s son Simon/Lucien died. 

Karen Silkwood, poor Karen Silkwood. 

Samuel Butler, who possibly wrote The Way of All Meat. 

Clytemnestra, who kills her husband, but of course after he had killed their daughter to raise wind to fill the warships’ sails. That is, Clytemnestra murders Agamemnon, but understandably so. 

Beethoven, who could not do children’s arithmetic. 

Wilhelm de Kooning, who is Dutch, like Rembrandt and Spinoza, who may or may not run into each other at the pharmacist’s shop. 

Nietzsche, who cries upon seeing a horse being beaten. 

J.M.W. Turner, who has himself tied to a ship’s mast so he can experience a storm from that perspective. 

Odysseus, who does the same for a different reason. 

Sappho, whose poems were shredded to stuff mummies. 

T.E. Shaw and Lawrence of Arabia, who are never seen together in one place. 

Winston Churchill, who has an English name. 

Vincent Van Gogh, who tries to reform a prostitute. 

Bruegel, who depicts snow in one of his paintings, specifically, a snowball fight.

Bertrand Russell, whose grandfather met George Washington.