I can narrow it down to 3 (all around the same age when they died):
Mozart. He would have totally out-composed Beethoven. If you take the last several of his compositions, they were way beyond his earlier works. I’d like to see how he’d mature beyond 1791.
Gershwin. Killed by a brain tumor at 37. What would he have done in another 20 years? Oh, and he’d live to see *Porgy and Bess *finally get the recognition it deserved.
Van Gogh. Can I bring him back for another 20 years, but with a gap of about a century? Long enough for him to get the psychiatric help he needed. Also to let him see what his paintings are selling for. If he had only known . . .
Masaccio or Giorgione. Each dies before 30 or so, and M basically invents Renaissance painting, and Giorgione was just awesomely creative and quirky. Wonder what he’d have done if he’d had as long a life as Titian.
Not a particularly famous one, but author Kate Ross (not her real name I think) wrote four kick-ass mystery novels, then died of cancer at around forty-something. So I’d like to give her some more time.
I love PTerry as much as anyone, but he’s easily busted the 30+ mark, I’m just not sure if he’s got 20 years-worth more stuff to say. Love to be proved wrong, mind you.
Yes. This. Though his voice 20 years ago (when he was only on his sixties) was already deep in the gravel. If it keeps getting lower for another 20 years from now, it’ll be less of a voice than a subsonic earthquake-like rumble.
PD James. Because I read, I think it was The Lighthouse and did a little figuring and she was 90 y.o. or near that, when she wrote it. Won’t be too many more, I don’t think.
If an already dead person is allowed: John D MacDonald.
Also, I’d like to give John Kennedy Toole another 20 years so he could write a sequel to A Confederacy of Dunces. He’d have to be in restraints for part of that time, as he reportedly killed himself after many attempts to get his novel published.
HP Lovecraft. 67’s still too young, but better than 47. Plus his stories were gradually growing better with age unlike other writers, it’d have been interesting to see stories with a World War II or Atomic Age background.
Of the singers who are not here anymore, Eddie Rabbit and Keith Whitley are who I miss, may they both rest in peace.
God bless you and their families always!!!
Holly
Indeed, like Qin Shi Huangdi, I am going to be cruel…and nominate H.P. Lovecraft.
Even with health issues cured, his typical luck might not have given him a very happy life. Professionally, financially, or personally. But that’s not the real horror.
He now dies in 1957. He gets to see almost unimaginable societal change. He gets to see The Wizard of Oz. He gets to see Creature from the Black Lagoon, in 3D. He gets to see the early stages of the Civil Rights movement; he gets to see the early whispers of the counterculture.
He gets to see the War.
He gets to see Europe in flames. He gets to see eighty million people die. He gets to see Coventry. He gets to see Auschwitz.
He gets to see Hiroshima.
He gets to see over 175 atmospheric atomic tests. He just misses Sputnik.
I’d love to see what he would make of it all…but for him, the shock might be too much to bear.
It would have to be Freddie Mercury. What I wouldn’t give to have him around for an extra 20 years. Forty-five is too young to see a talent like that go.
These were the first two that came to my mind as well. It would have been amazing to see what else either of them could have come up with had they had another couple decades. Mozart was only 35 when he died!
