Arthur Conan Doyle (01 of14)
Open Image ModalSleuths and mustaches go together like sailors and beards: a convention that may well date back to Arthur Conan Doyle's fantastic 'coat hanger'-shaped facial fuzz. And the fact he invented Sherlock Holmes, of course. (credit:PA)
Salvador Dali(02 of14)
Open Image ModalHis paintings were surreal, of course, but they had nothing on his mustache - principally because it made him look like he was eating a bull. (credit:PA)
Édouard Manet(03 of14)
Open Image ModalThe French Impressionist didn't mess about when it came to facial hair, combining a bristly 'tache with an equally epic beard. And try and tell us it only took a month to grow, either. (credit:REX)
Gustave Flaubert(04 of14)
Open Image ModalFlaubert's saucy masterpiece Madame Bovary got pulses racing 1856 - sadly, we're not sure the same could be said for his 'strands on a poodle's backside' mustache. (credit:REX)
Hemingway(05 of14)
Open Image ModalIn his later years Papa became famous for his full white beard, but as a younger man, he was fond of what would later be considered a 'Burt Reynolds' mustache. Reyonlds of course probably copied Hemingway's style - like most male novelists between 1926 and 1975. (credit:PA)
Henri Matisse(06 of14)
Open Image ModalEarly in his career, before Matisse became one of the most significant painters of the 20th Century, he was labelled a Fauve - which referred to a short-lived art movement but translated in French as 'wild beast'. In later years, the same term would make for an apt description of his facial hair. (credit:PA)
James Joyce (07 of14)
Open Image ModalHis novels have sometimes been labelled 'incomprehensible' by frustrated, intellectually-inferior readers... James Joyce's mustache and beard combo, on the other hand, were labelled incomprehensible by anyone with eyes. (credit:PA)
Kurt Vonnegut(08 of14)
Open Image ModalVonnegut wrote some of the most insightful, prescient science-fiction in the history of literature - and for that reason we refuse point blank to make fun of the 70's mustache he kept well into the 2000s. (credit:PA)
Mark Twain (09 of14)
Open Image ModalTwain has one of those faces that you simply can't imagine without it's coffee slurper - take it away and you fancy he'd just melt out of history, taking Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn with him. (credit:PA)
William Shakespeare(10 of14)
Open Image ModalDid he REALLY write all those plays? Yes, of course. But did he REALLY have a mustache creepier than a rat's nightmare? That's just one the scholars will never be able to agree on... (credit:REX)
Vincent Van Gogh(11 of14)
Open Image ModalIt could be that Van Gogh exaggerated his 'tache to lend his self-portraits a unkempt, frantic edge in fitting with his somewhat scorched psyche. Alternatively, he may have misplaced his trimming set. (credit:REX)
Gabriel Garcia Marquez (12 of14)
Open Image ModalThe Nobel Prize-winning Magic Realist wrote One Hundred Years of Solitude - which coincidentally is the sentence given out in some cultures to anyone caught sporting this mustache. (credit:REX)
George Orwell (13 of14)
Open Image ModalWe can't imagine for a moment that The Party from 1984 would tolerate Orwell's highly individualistic 'half depth' pencil 'tache. Well, would you? (credit:PA)
Frida Kahlo(14 of14)
Open Image ModalA surprise female entry to round off our Culture Movember gallery - although, of course, Kahlo didn't actually have a mustache, just a penchant for painting herself with one. See also: monobrow. (credit:REX)