One of the most frustrating things about book collecting is chasing books which turn out to (probably) not exist at all. You see them as results in Amazon searches, but they are never available, they may even be even cited in other works, but you find no trace of them in any copyright library. You may even find an ISBN or an entry in a publisher's catalogue - but even those trails peter out eventually.
For the student of David Lloyd George this adds to other frustrations - the unfortunate deaths of various biographers before they complete their planned series, the lack of bibliographical information about Lloyd George's own works (let alone an index of his numerous writings for newspapers and magazines), and the shear volume of works about him over the years. Just the other day I found a reference to The Future of Liberalism, a pamphlet of speeches by Lloyd George in Manchester, Oxford, and Llandrindod Wells, which not only had I never heard of before, but of which I can find no trace beyond its advertisement in the Lloyd George Liberal Magazine. At thruppence a copy post free it sounds like excellent value.
Two books, or rumours of books, stand out in particular. Collected Speeches of David Lloyd George, and Collected Correspondence of David Lloyd George and Winston S. Churchill, 1904-1945, both by Ian Hunter (whose Winston and Archie: The Letters of Winston Churchill and Archibald Sinclair certainly exists and which I have just ordered). Both would be of immense value to anyone interested in Lloyd George, the history of Liberalism and the Welfare State, and indeed to Churchill aficionados. I once saw the Collected Correspondence advertised on (I think) Portuguese Amazon, but I lacked the funds at the time for the £80 asked.
Still, I suppose it gives one something to hope for - one day a lucky google, or the back room of a dusty bookshop, will turn up something I had become convinced did not exist.
