The Floating Press: 2252 books

The religious belief of partialism states that not everyone will achieve salvation in God's eyes. Because they subscribe to the notion of hell and eternal damnation, many Christian denominations can be said to hold to the doctrine of partialism. In this book, theologian John Claudius Pitrat contends...

Have you ever played the parlor game where you name the historical figures you'd like to invite to a dinner party? This fascinating book is kind of like the written form of that exercise. It brings together the key arguments and beliefs espoused by an array of the top minds in the 'free thought' movement,...

The era now referred to as the Renaissance represented an unparalleled blossoming of art and culture. Take a tour of the period through the imagination of Walter Pater, one of England's most renowned art historians and critics. In this volume, Pater turns his attention to a series of Renaissance masterpieces...

Though he originally wrote it as a play, British author Hall Caine transformed The Eternal City into a novel after he initially experienced little interest from producers. As a novel, The Eternal City was extremely well received, selling well more than 1 million copies. Set in Rome, the story is a life-affirming allegory about the power of love and commitment to a cause bigger than oneself.

When viewed in light of the fact that "Vernon Lee" was actually a pseudonym for female writer Violet Paget, the engaging tales collected in Vanitas become all the more interesting. These stories cast light on the silly, superficial and sometimes unsavory attitudes and behaviors of the so-called fairer sex.

The word "domnei" refers to the ritualized devotion that knights were required to display toward their ladies in the medieval period. James Branch Cabell's novel of the same title explores the concept in a rich, meditative look at femme fatale Melicent and the ultimately ruinous sparring her love inspires among her coterie of husbands, knights, and suitors.

Set in the fifteenth century, Maitre Cornelius is a gripping historical novel that illustrates the unbelievable lengths to which some will go in the name of love. Marie, the daughter of the king, is trapped in a loveless marriage with a cruel, violent man. To escape her horrible home life, she begins...

"The Purse" is a short story that makes up part of Honore de Balzac's epic cycle The Human Comedy. Daydreaming while working on a ladder, the painter Hippolyte Schinner accidentally falls and sustains an injury. Two neighbors -- a mother and daughter -- come to his aid, and he falls in love at first...

Immerse yourself in a French pastoral idyll in this engrossing tale from Honore de Balzac, whose unparalleled powers of description will whisk you away to La Grenadiere, a quaint estate in the midst of a blossoming orchard. Indeed, the house itself emerges as one of the most memorable characters in the story.

Part of Honore de Balzac's sprawling epic The Human Comedy, the novella The Commission in Lunacy focuses on the story of a bachelor who feels his youth rapidly slipping away and tries to renew his sense of vigor and fulfillment through various means. He crosses paths with the beguiling Madame d'Espard and soon finds himself caught up in a nefarious scheme.

Part of Balzac's masterpiece, the multi-volume story cycle The Human Comedy, the short story "Study of a Woman" focuses on Madame de Listomere, an uptight model of propriety, who finds herself being flirted with by the rapscallion Eugene de Rastignac, who has taken up the courtship as a lark.

Hailing from a renowned literary family, the writer Alec Waugh caused a scandal with the publication of his autobiographical novel/memoir, The Loom of Youth. The book treats the subject of homosexual relationships among British schoolboys with a degree of frankness that was unprecedented at the time, and due to its risque nature and keen insights, it went on to be a runaway bestseller.

Though he never achieved the fame of his younger brother Evelyn Waugh, Alec Waugh was a prolific writer who found his niche in crafting often-autobiographical, sometimes-scandalous stories about boys attending British public schools. The Lonely Unicorn is a lovely and well-wrought coming-of-age novel that follows protagonist Roland Whately from the halls of academia out into the wider world.

Learn more about Adam Smith, the groundbreaking philosopher who played an important role in originating the study of economics and gave us many of the concepts that still govern the market today. Written by John Rae, this biography details Smith's early life in Scotland and his later rise to academic...