The Arrow of Gold is a novel by Joseph Conrad

Joseph Conrad

Joseph Conrad was a Polish-born English novelist.Conrad is regarded as one of the great novelists in English, although he did not speak the language fluently until he was in his twenties...

, 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

Marseille

Marseille , known in antiquity as Massalia , is the second largest city in France, after Paris, with a population of 852,395 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Marseille extends beyond the city limits with a population of over 1,420,000 on an area of...

 in the 1870s during the Third Carlist War

Third Carlist War

The Third Carlist War was the last Carlist War in Spain. It is very often referred to as the Second Carlist War, as the 'second' had been small in scale and almost trivial in political consequence....

. The characters of the novel are supporters of the Spanish Pretender Carlos, Duke of Madrid

Carlos, Duke of Madrid

Infante Carlos María de los Dolores Juan Isidro José Francisco Quirin Antonio Miguel Gabriel Rafael de Borbón y Austria-Este, Duke of Madrid was the senior member of the House of Bourbon from 1887 until his death...

.

The narrator of The Arrow of Gold has considerable involvement in the story and is unnamed, though some assume he is Conrad's regular narrator

Narrator

A narrator is, within any story , the fictional or non-fictional, personal or impersonal entity who tells the story to the audience. When the narrator is also a character within the story, he or she is sometimes known as the viewpoint character. The narrator is one of three entities responsible for...

, Charles Marlow

Charles Marlow

Charles Marlow is a recurring character in the work of Polish-born English novelist Joseph Conrad. Marlow is an alter ego of Conrad; both are sailors for the British Empire during the late-19th and early-20th century during the height of British imperialism....

. The principal theme is a love triangle which comprises the young narrator, Doña Rita and the Confederate

Confederate States Army

The Confederate States Army was the army of the Confederate States of America while the Confederacy existed during the American Civil War. On February 8, 1861, delegates from the seven Deep South states which had already declared their secession from the United States of America adopted the...

 veteran Captain 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.