Books published by publisher The Floating Press

A classic collaboration between two literary giants, The Perils of Certain English Prisoners is a gripping adventure story filled with murder, intrigue, and strong female characters Following on from the success of The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices, Hesperus presents another collaboration from close friends and literary giants, Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins. Their legendary friendship resulted in a number of joint literary ventures, in this case Collins wrote the second chapter under Dickens' supervision. Inspired by events of the Indian Mutiny in 1857, but wishing to distance himself from the context of India itself, Dickens chose to set his novella in Central America. This adventure story takes place on an island near the English colony of Belize, where a silver mine is overrun by pirates, who in turn murder a number of English colonists and take the remaining prisoner. In the diverting narrative that follows, the initiative of intrepid women prisoners enables the captives to escape.

An elder sister came to visit her younger sister in the country. The elder was married to a tradesman in town, the younger to a peasant in the village. As the sisters sat over their tea talking, the elder began to boast of the advantages of town life: saying how comfortably they lived there, how well they dressed, what fine clothes her children wore what good things they ate and drank, and how she went to the theatre, promenades, and entertainments.

Mrs. Gereth had said she would go with the rest to church, but suddenly it seemed to her that she should not be able to wait even till church-time for relief: breakfast, at Waterbath, was a punctual meal, and she had still nearly an hour on her hands. Knowing the church to be near, she prepared in her room for the little rural walk, and on her way down again, passing through corridors and observing imbecilities of decoration, the æsthetic misery of the big commodious house, she felt a return of the tide of last night's irritation, a renewal of everything she could secretly suffer from ugliness and stupidity. Why did she consent to such contacts, why did she so rashly expose herself? She had had, heaven knew, her reasons, but the whole experience was to be sharper than she had feared.

Excerpt from The Bobbsey Twins, or Merry Days Indoor and OutNan was a tall and slender girl, with a dark face and red cheeks. Her eyes were a deep brown and so were the curls that clustered around her head.Bert was indeed a twin, not only because he was the same age as Nan, but because he looked so very much like her. To be sure, he looked like a boy, while she looked like a girl, but he had the same dark complexion, the same brown eyes and hair, and his voice was very much the same, only stronger.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

This is the story of how a middle-aged spinster lost her mind, deserted her domestic gods in the city, took a furnished house for the summer out of town, and found herself involved in one of those mysterious crimes that keep our newspapers and detective agencies happy and prosperous. For twenty years I had been perfectly comfortable; for twenty years I had had the window-boxes filled in the spring, the carpets lifted, the awnings put up and the furniture covered with brown linen; for as many summers I had said good-bye to my friends, and, after watching their perspiring hegira, had settled down to a delicious quiet in town, where the mail comes three times a day, and the water supply does not depend on a tank on the roof. And then — the madness seized me. When I look back over the months I spent at Sunnyside, I wonder that I survived at all. As it is, I show the wear and tear of my harrowing experiences. I have turned very gray — Liddy reminded me of it, only yesterday, by saying that a little bluing in the rinse-water would make my hair silvery, instead of a yellowish white. I hate to be reminded of unpleasant things and I snapped her off. No, I said sharply, I’m not going to use bluing at my time of life, or starch, either.

James Thorne Smith Jr. (March 27, 1892-June 21, 1934), was an American writer of humorous supernatural fantasy fiction. Best known today for his creation of Topper, Smith's comic fantasy fiction (most of it involving sex, lots of drinking, and supernatural transformations, and aided by racy illustrations) sold millions of copies in the early 1930s. Smith drank as steadily as his characters; his appearance in James Thurber's The Years With Ross involves an unexplained week-long disappearance. Smith was born in Annapolis, Maryland the son of a Navy commodore, attended Dartmouth College, and after hungry years in Greenwich Village working part-time as an advertising agent, Smith achieved meteoric success with the publication of Topper in 1926. He died of a heart attack in 1934 while vacationing in Florida.

The present volume on King Robert the Bruce is the historical complement to the former volume on Sir William Wallace. Together they outline, from the standpoint of the leading spirits, the prolonged and successful struggle of the Scots against the unprovoked aggression of Edward I. and Edward II. the most memorable episode in the history of Scotland. As in the story of Wallace, so in the story of Bruce, the narrative is based on the primary authorities. Happily State records and official papers supply much trustworthy material, which furnishes also an invaluable test of the accuracy of the numerous and wayward race of chroniclers. Barbour spoem, with all its errors of fact and deflections of judgment, is eminently useful in spite of the indulgence of historical criticism. There is no space here to set forth the long list of sources, or to attempt a formal estimate of their comparative value. Some of them appear incidentally in the text, though only where it seems absolutely necessary to name them. The expert knows them; the general reader vill not miss them. Nor is there room for more than occasional argument on controverted points; it has very frequently been necessary to signify disapproval by mere silence.(Typographical errors above are due to OCR software and don't occur in the book.)About the Publisher Forgotten Books is a publisher of historical writings, such as: Philosophy, Classics, Science, Religion, History, Folklore and Mythology.Forgotten Books' Classic Reprint Series utilizes the latest technology to regenerate facsimiles of historically important writings. Careful attention has been made to accurately preserve the original format of each page whilst digitally enhancing the aged text. Read books online for free at www.forgottenbooks.org