Steven, I think I understand the intention of your exercise. I take 
it from your message that the goal of your new exercise is to write 
about an episode that will be fascinating to professional historians 
of economic thought. When you said that your goal is to trace "the 
diffusion of the Coase theorem in the textbook literature," you were 
not implying that the Coase theorem has a specific meaning ( as 
opposed to a variety of possible meanings) or that the textbook 
literature has anything to do with the contribution of Coase's social 
cost paper to economics.

You may not understand the intention of my comment. I do not 
associate the idea that the Coase theorem is about entrepreneurship 
and private property rights with Austrian economics. I was thinking 
about Knight, whom I mentioned. And also about Phillip Wicksteed, 
whom I did not mention. These were the two writers whose books Lionel 
Robbins, the Chair at LSE during Coase's schooldays, recommend that 
all students read (and, as I recall, Coase mentioned having read). 
These writers were early neoclassical economists, as I used the term.

If I were writing about the relationship between Coase's writings on 
(1) social cost and (2) economics, I would want to begin by carefully 
defining each term. Then I would ask whether a particular 
interpretation of the relationship between these could be defended 
through a proper exegesis. Regarding the textbooks, I might then ask 
how the interpretation described in the textbooks compares with that 
which seems the most correct.

I suppose that, in some measure, the implicit message of my post was 
that I wish that you were doing this. But I now see that your 
exercise has a different objective. Thanks for the explanation.

Pat Gunning