Wow, 400 posts on this subject/thread!

My personal aim at this point (it changes slightly now and then) is to get through the 19th century, to kind of create a nice, round, pausing-point. That includes both texts written in the 19th century (my main priority) and those referencing events in the 19th century.

I am sorting the material according to both chronology of reference and chronology of publication. At this point, I've posted the more or less complete reference chronology up through the '70s. That one is to get a picture of the development of chantying, and I'll continue to update it as part of this discussion.

I've also been creating a publication chronology -- an annotated bibliography of texts referring to chanties -- which is a personal thing that I'll use in he future. The reason why I mention this one is because it explains why I am so interested in recording the specific details: it aids in later constructing the bibliography. The thread becomes something that is a "one stop" source where it's easy to search and see, for example, who first said "chanteur" or who first mentioned Dibdin.

I'd like to write some sort of article about this stuff eventually.