While Rome Burns is a book collecting some of the 20th century American critic Alexander Woollcott's writings for the New Yorker[1] and other magazines. The title is a reference to the popular legend that Nero played the fiddle while Rome burned. The book was published by Grosset & Dunlap in 1934. Vincent Starrett hailed it as one of the 52 "Best Loved Books of the Twentieth Century".[2] Woollcott promoted the book on his radio show and his pointed critiques, quips, and asides gained enough of an audience to make it a bestseller.[2] The New York Times reviewed it.[3] The book includes accounts of his travels to Japan and Russia.[4]
A sequel, Long, Long Ago, was published after Woollcott's death in 1943.[5]
