26. AMBROSE BIERCE
Spoilers: Bierce’s gone. The hilarious writer died 71 in 1914. If he ended up like Brendan Fraser in Encino Man, frozen in ice, reborn thousands of years later to teach two kids some fun-yet-valuable life lessons, he went fast. Bierce’s last contact said he was going to Ojinaga, a town that quickly fell into a horrible siege. One biographer of Pancho Villa reports that Bierce rode with the legendary revolutionary, dying as part of his army. Others believe Ojinaga was just injured and then died of illness. Yet others believe he rode with the powers of government, seized and killed by Villa’s citizens.
26. AMBROSE BIERCE
27. WELDON KEES
In another universe, Weldon Kees is one of those names you got sick of studying in American lit class. A poet who tried to bridge the divide between jazz age experimentation and New Age madness, Kees was always on the verge of making it big. Living in New York, he attended literary parties alongside people like the novelist Graham Greene. Living in San Francisco, he became friends with the movie critic Pauline Kael. But Kees never became famous, exactly. The sad part was, he disappeared too soon for that.
27. WELDON KEES
