What's the Name of That Book??? discussion

I'm reading The Divine Comedy: Inferno, and I love that Dante has Virgil, his greatest hero and role model, to walk with him and help him through his worst fears and despair. It seems like the earliest kind of fan worship. Although Dante is not just any fan; he's following in his idol's footsteps.
I'm sure that in this situation, Allen Ginsberg would have Walt Whitman as his guide. Someone whose opinions I trust said that Whitman would have William Blake, and so would Kenneth Patchen. She said that E.M. Forster and, I think, Henry James, would have Jane Austen. She said that Virginia Woolf would have E.M. Forster. And I'm sure Brian Setzer would have Eddie Cochran.
Can you think of other mentor/mentee pairs like this? And who would be your Virgil, the person you admire most and in whose footsteps you want to follow? (Sorry for that awkward phrasing.) Someone whose work you admire, not because of your personal relationship with them, if you have one—for example, Virginia Woolf was friends with E.M. Forster, but he was also a literary role model for her.
It doesn't have to be a literary role model.

Anyone?

Oh, as far as most admire I would certainly go with Tolkien.

For a guide to the underworld Sir Patrick Stewart (far far in the future of course).

Of course, Vanessa!

As a poet, Shakespeare, Alexander Pope, Eliot, or Pound.

As a novelist, Austen, George Eliot, Joseph Conrad, Graham Greene, Waugh, Scott Fitzgerald, Dickens, Anthony Powell, Edward St Aubyn (who's actually younger than me!)

As a playwright, Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Marlowe, John Webster.

What about a guide to the underworld, Richard?