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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">Thanks for this! But as Woolf used
Clara Pater's comment about <i>Barker's pins</i>, which from what
I have discovered did exist, how relevant is the link to the
(real) Herbert M <i>Slater</i> company?<br>
<br>
It does open for the possibility that Woolf felt that to avoid
libel she needed to change the name, but then (deliberately or,
more likely unconsciously)Â chose the name of another real company
that made pins. The present-day company, according to the website,
manufactures needles, so it is absolutely possible that at some
time it also made pins. Incidentally, although your link worked,
none of the links on Slater's webpage to specific products seem to
work. Slater's links have no points!<br>
<br>
If Herbert M Slater & Co made pins in 1927 they might well
have been somewhat ticked off by Woolf's story ... but they don't
seem to have insisted on Woolf's changing the name.<br>
<br>
Jeremy H<br>
<br>
Den 18.11.2013 09:52, skrev William Bain:<br>
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font-family:HelveticaNeue, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial,
Lucida Grande, sans-serif;font-size:12pt">Very interesting
questions. All I can offer is a<br>
tiny bit of quick research on the www. The link<br>
below gives some information on products made<br>
by Herbert M. Slater. Apparently all far from blunt,<br>
though of course the text is a kind of advertisment<br>
from the company itself, I believe. Best wishes, WB (link
>>><br>
<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://ukmade.wordpress.com/tag/herbert-m-slater-1853-ltd/">http://ukmade.wordpress.com/tag/herbert-m-slater-1853-ltd/</a><br>
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<div dir="ltr"> <font size="2" face="Arial"> On Monday,
November 18, 2013 9:14 AM, Jeremy Hawthorn
<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:jeremy.hawthorn@ntnu.no"><jeremy.hawthorn@ntnu.no></a> wrote:<br>
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<div> I have long wondered whether Slater's pins
really were blunter than the average. We know that
Woolf used a comment made about (the real) Barker's
pins by Clara Pater. If one browses critical
comments on the story all move straight into symbol
and metaphor and sexual politics; I have not found
one that asks whether it is possible that Clara
Pater really did mean that Barker's pins had no
point, or whether she was right. It's not that the
symbolic /metaphorical extensions are wrong (they
are I think right), but I wonder whether they are
based upon some truth in the non-literary world. In
contrast, when readers and critics come across this
passage in Conrad, no-one asks what it symbolises:
the nails are nails:<br>
<br>
"At the bottom the nails lay in a layer several
inches thick. It was ghastly. Every nail in the
world, not driven in firmly somewhere, seemed to
have found its way into that carpenter’s shop. There
they were, of all kinds, the remnants of stores from
seven voyages. Tin-tacks, copper tacks (sharp as
needles), pump nails, with big heads, like tiny iron
mushrooms; nails without any heads (horrible);
French nails polished and slim. They lay in a solid
mass more inabordable than a hedgehog. We hesitated
yearning for a shovel, while Jimmy below us yelled
as though he had been flayed. Groaning, we dug our
fingers in, and very much hurt, shook our hands,
scattering nails and drops of blood. We passed up
our hats full of assorted nails to the boatswain,
who, as if performing a mysterious and appeasing
rite, cast them wide upon a raging sea."<br>
<br>
Part of this is reader expectation. We expect
descriptions of physical objects aboard ship in a
Conrad fiction to evoke the physical; we expect
descriptions of physical objects in a Woolf fiction
to lead on to matters social and experiential.<br>
<br>
Thinking about this, I recalled that I had once had
a very pleasant visit to a museum of needles and
pins in the English midlands, so I wrote and asked
them if they had any information about Barker's
pins. Alas, they did not. A Google search for
Barker's pins threw up hardly any hits, but one did
suggest that Barker's supplied the medical
profession with pins - which does not suggest that
they produced low-quality goods.<br>
<br>
So: has anyone ever found out anything about
Barker's pins that might confirm that they did
actually have no point? And do we assume that it is
Clara Pater who was talking in code to Virginia, or
that while <i>she</i> had no hidden meaning it is
Woolf herself who takes the comment and gives it a
double meaning in the story?<br>
<br>
Incidentally, for anyone with a taste for odd
museums (I speak as one who has visited the sadly
now-closed Liberace museum in Las Vegas), here is
the web address for the needle and pin museum. <br>
<br>
<a moz-do-not-send="true" rel="nofollow"
class="yiv7726425102moz-txt-link-freetext"
target="_blank"
href="http://www.forgemill.org.uk/">http://www.forgemill.org.uk/</a><br>
<br>
Jeremy H<br>
<pre class="yiv7726425102moz-signature">--
Jeremy Hawthorn
Emeritus professor
Department of Language and Literature
NTNU
7491 Trondheim
Norway
(00 47) 73596787 (NTNU)
(00 47) 72887602 (home
(00 47) 90181427 (cellphone)
See details of my forthcoming book at:
<a moz-do-not-send="true" rel="nofollow" class="yiv7726425102moz-txt-link-freetext" target="_blank" href="https://ohiostatepress.org/Books/Book%20Pages/Hawthorn%20Reader.html">https://ohiostatepress.org/Books/Book%20Pages/Hawthorn%20Reader.html</a>
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<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Jeremy Hawthorn
Emeritus professor
Department of Language and Literature
NTNU
7491 Trondheim
Norway
(00 47) 73596787 (NTNU)
(00 47) 72887602 (home
(00 47) 90181427 (cellphone)
See details of my forthcoming book at:
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://ohiostatepress.org/Books/Book%20Pages/Hawthorn%20Reader.html">https://ohiostatepress.org/Books/Book%20Pages/Hawthorn%20Reader.html</a>
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