On the beta site, I added then deleted a number of works in BB for Thornton Burgess; I discovered what I was entering were chapters of novels, not short stories as they appeared. It didn't make sense to merge these, do I set out to revert my error by deleting them.

Deleting works in BB does work, though it will result in the gateway timing out with 504. That was a bug I was going to report as well. It wasn't getting in my way, but it may provide a clue as to what may have happened in this instance.

All of the works were deleted, except one: (unnamed). If you attempt to access this work through beta site, it will stall and eventually result in a 504.

You can view (unnamed) on the production site, and it's clearly marked as one of the deleted works.

So, I see 2 issues:

1. This work appears to have been only partially deleted.
2. The beta site will timeout when trying to access the work.