Thanks to Anna Miller for sending me the link to this post at Online Degree: 10 Greatest Writers Who Became Famous After Death.
It mentions some notable figures like Franz Kafka, and one or two I still know nothing about despite their deaths. Offhand, I can't think of any others, but I can think of several writers who were famous while they lived but disappeared soon after they died: James Gould Cozzens, for example, or Frank Yerby, or James Jones. (For many more forgotten authors, see Wikipedia's list of 1950s bestsellers. And yes, I know the list includes J.D. Salinger and Ayn Rand.)
The moral: If you write for immortality, you would be wiser to dive headfirst into a tank of liquid nitrogen and hope that someone will keep you frozen until future generations know how to thaw you out...assuming they also think you're worth the trouble.
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