Bernardo Pinheiro Correia de Melo, first Count of Arnoso, (1855 –1911), was a Portuguese writer and personal secretary to King Carlos.

At the age of seven he was sent to the Portuguese capital of Lisbon to stay with family friends and study at the English College, a school attached to a Catholic monastery.

He took the opportunity to visit many places, both in China and during his journeys there and back, including Egypt, Singapore, Macau, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Tianjin, Japan and the United States.

He accompanied D. Carlos I on visits to France, Germany and Spain and was part of the official delegation for the funeral of Queen Victoria in London.

[1][2] He became a member of the Vencidos da Vida (Life's Vanquished), a group of aristocratic intellectuals, which included the writers Eça de Queirós and Ramalho Ortigão, who had strived to modernise the country in their youth but by the late 1800s perceived that they had failed.