''While Rome Burns'' is a book collecting some of the 20th century American critic

Alexander Woollcott Alexander Humphreys Woollcott (January 19, 1887 – January 23, 1943) was an American drama critic and commentator for ''The New Yorker'' magazine, a member of the Algonquin Round Table, an occasional actor and playwright, and a prominent radio p ...

's writings for the '' New Yorker'' and other magazines. The title is a reference to the popular legend that Nero played the

fiddle A fiddle is a bowed string musical instrument, most often a violin. It is a colloquial term for the violin, used by players in all genres, including classical music. Although in many cases violins and fiddles are essentially synonymous, th ...

while Rome burned. The book was published by

Grosset & Dunlap Grosset & Dunlap is a New York City-based publishing house founded in 1898. The company was purchased by G. P. Putnam's Sons in 1982 and today is part of Penguin Random House through its subsidiary Penguin Group. Today, through the Penguin Gro ...

in 1934. Vincent Starrett hailed it as one of the 52 "Best Loved Books of the Twentieth Century".Wallace, David
"The Round Table"
''Capital of the World: A Portrait of New York City in the Roaring Twenties''. Guilford, CT: Lyons Press. p. 168. . 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. The ''New York Times'' reviewed it. The book includes accounts of his travels to Japan and Russia. A sequel, ''Long, Long Ago'', was published after Woollcott's death in 1943.

References

{{Reflist 1934 non-fiction books American travel books Books of literary criticism Grosset & Dunlap books