Obliterated fiction

1.  *looks through GoogleBooks links* Time to start reading another Catholic novel, I think.  Hmmm...Let's say Preston Hall.
2. Hey, this is a sequel to a satirical novella called Stumpingford.  Surely I should read that first?
3. I will now look for Stumpingford.
4. OK, I've found the author in the Wellesley Index (Daniel Parsons, apparently the husband of another Catholic novelist, Gertrude Parsons), but I haven't found Stumpingford.
5. Maybe it was serialized in The Rambler, like Preston Hall?
6. ...No.
7. Perhaps a print copy is floating around the universe somewhere? I'll check WorldCat.
8. WorldCat says the only copy is owned by the British Library.  I would find that out several months after I left.  
9. Maybe the BL has digitized it.
10. Here's the catalog ent--oh, for crying out loud, the shelfmark has a "D" prefix (translation: destroyed during the Blitz).
11. ...So, does anyone happen to have a random copy of Stumpingford just, you know, lying about? In an attic, say?

Comments

[Laura Vivanco]

It was a bit tantalising to find the Rambler's review:

Stumping ford, a Tale of the Protestant Alliance; Jonah; and La
Salctte (Richardson and Son), is a most clever and amusing little tale
a true tale of the times. We do not mean that the incidents narrated in
these pages have any where happened precisely in the order and manner
here recorded; but they are such as might have happened in any town
in England, and something very like what actually has happened
within the last two or three years. The vein of satire which runs
through the whole book, especially the earlier and latter portions of it,
is irresistibly ludicrous; and yet the tale is a picture of the times, not a
caricature. Indeed, it is the truth of the satire which gives it all its
point. The conversion and death of the hero are most skilfully managed,
and very effectively told. In a word, we have both laughed and cried
over these pages. Need we say more to recommend them to our
readers?

[Brian Ogilvie]

On a hunch, I just checked the NUC Pre-1956 Imprints (which Hathi Trust has online—scanned with Google's usual care and attentiveness), but it's not there. Oh well!

[Roger]

You've probably checked these, but: are all the British Copyright Libraries on Worldcat?
Are there any Catholic libraries - Cathedral, seminary, college - in the UK or Ireland especially -with still undigitised catalogues?
What became of the publishers and their archives?
Descendants of the author?