The Arrow of Gold: A Story Between Two Notes

The Arrow of Gold is a novel by Joseph Conrad, published in 1919. It was originally titled "The Laugh" and published serially in Lloyd's Magazine from December 1918 to February 1920. The story is set in Marseille in the 1870s during the Third Carlist War. The characters of the novel are supporters of the Spanish Pretender Carlos, Duke of Madrid. Curiously, the novel features a person referred to as "Lord X", whose activities as arms smuggler resemble those of the Carlist politician Tirso de Olazábal y Lardizábal, Count of Arbelaiz.

The narrator of The Arrow of Gold has considerable involvement in the story and is unnamed. The principal theme is a love triangle which comprises the young narrator, Doña Rita and the Confederate veteran Captain Blunt (named for Simon F. Blunt. Doña Rita finances the operations of the narrator's vessel, Tremolino which smuggles ammunition to the Carlist army. Nautical operations are detailed in the Tremolino chapters of The Mirror of the Sea rather than in this novel.

Conrad dedicated the novel to his friend and literary assistant Richard Curle.

Reflecting Conrad's genius for narrative that focuses on the quest for inner truths, The Arrow of Gold is an exploration of the dangerous appetites of men and of human vulnerability, as well as a profound meditation on the emotional boundary between people. Boasting a cast of extraordinary and eccentric personalities, including the heroine Dona Rita, this is a story of adventure on the high seas, of the revelation of love, of the crushing weight of loss, and of freedom found in the recklessness of unadorned sincerity.

During the Carlist war of the early 1870s, a young sailor, the unnamed protagonist, joins the champions of Don Carlos de Bourbon, pretender to the throne of Spain. The Carlists use the eager youth's intense attraction to the sea to persuade him to run perilous enterprises for their cause, ventures he later learns have been financed by the beautiful mistress and heiress of a rich man's fortune. When he falls in love with her, he finds himself moved absolutely by this discovery, despite the fact that she is unable to return his love fully. In the end he is left alone with his first love, the sea, his brief time with the mysterious Dona Rita marking a tumultuous awakening to a life of passion, the desolation that hides in its shadow, and the possibility of rebirth in its wake.

Although not as well known as his earlier novels Lord Jim and Nostromo, The Arrow of Gold was critically acclaimed when it first appeared in 1919 and is still considered to be among the best of Conrad's later works.