While Rome Burns by WOOLLCOTT, Alexander - 1934

New York: Viking Press, 1934. Fourth printing. Hardcover. Very good. Octavo, 328pp. A very good copy in the publisher's red cloth, lacking the dust jacket. Spine gilt gently faded, bottom corners tapped, and the spine cocked, else a clean, sound copy. SIGNED by Woollcott on the front free endpaper in a contemporary hand. A typed letter, SIGNED by Woollcott is neatly tipped onto the front paste-down. The letter is addressed to one "Mr. Worcester," and is dated before the publication of the book (September 1, 1933). The letter thanks Mr. Worcester "for the A. E. F. story, which has all the fine hostility to the welfare services which was characteristic of the doughboy." Woollcott goes on to advise Worcester that the Viking Press will be making "a re-print of the best Shouts and Murmurs pieces" in January (this refers to the very book offered here). We were unable to identify Worcester, but presume that the story Woollcott refers to in the letter is "Hands Across the Sea," a recollection of Woollcott's service in the Medical Corps of the American Expeditionary Forces during World War I. Woollcott was one of a half dozen newspapermen serving in the war who were recruited to edit and publish "Stars and Stripes." Among the others were Harold Ross, who would found "The New Yorker" with Woollcott and others just a few years after the war. A pleasing copy of this Woollcott collection.