Frederic Morton, who as a child left Austria with his family after the Nazis took over and wrote a variety of books and criticism, died on April 20 in Vienna, the New York Times reported. He was 90 and was visiting the city that figured largely in his work--and which embraced him in later years. He won several Austrian honors, was given several 90th birthday parties last year in Vienna, and in 2002, the city distributed 100,000 copies of The Forever Street, his family saga set in Vienna, to residents for free.
Morton's best-known work was The Rothschilds, about the banking family, which became a Broadway show. Other nonfiction included A Nervous Splendor: Vienna, 1888-1889, Thunder at Twilight: Vienna 1913-14 and a memoir, Runaway Waltz. His novels had "a European flavor on themes involving money and power," the Times wrote.