please help me find this amazing dragon book i read as a kid

November 8, 2023 7:58 PM

when i was a kid (lets say like 40 years ago), i read a novel which was in the form of a naturalist's journal about observing a family of dragons which lived in nearby mountains, i think maybe in portugal or in the spanish pyrenees ... can you please help me find this book?

I wish I remembered more details. I remember one of the dragons was named Mateo, the book had cool little sketches too in the style of a naturalist's drawing from life ... The prose was relatively rich, it didn't really come off as a children's book. I don't think there necessarily was a plot (naturalist's journal right), there was no metaphysics, no swords, no quests, aside from the dragons it may as well have just been the modern world.

I think I probably never owned a copy and just kept checking it out from the local library, and as a consequence I don't have it now (or any record of it), but I really want to share it with my daughter (she is definitely not old enough yet but hey).

posted by doteatop to Writing & Language (11 answers total)

The Flight of Dragons?
posted by cakelite at 8:19 PM on November 8, 2023 [1 favorite]

Ooh I think I know this one! A Natural History of Dragons: A Memoir by Lady Trent?
posted by silverstatue at 8:30 PM on November 8, 2023 [1 favorite]

The Discovery of Dragons, by Graeme Bas (1996, though)
posted by Iris Gambol at 11:16 PM on November 8, 2023

Could it have been Dragonology?
posted by lostburner at 4:41 AM on November 9, 2023

I too would guess that it's Dragonology: The Complete Book of Dragons (some sample pages there)
posted by Baethan at 4:59 AM on November 9, 2023 [1 favorite]

I have copies of both The Flight of Dragons (Peter Dickinson) and A Natural History of Dragons (Marie Brennan), and they're both great, but I'm afraid neither of them is the book in question. The Flight of Dragons is old enough (1979) and is presented as non-fiction, but it's about dragons as creatures that once existed, but are now extinct; A Natural History of Dragons is too recent, first published in 2014 (and it's a novel with an 18th-19th-century feel to it, set in a secondary world).
posted by ManyLeggedCreature at 5:06 AM on November 9, 2023 [2 favorites]

Doesn't sound like it's going to be either of these, but in case they're of interest

Dragons: A Natural History by Karl Shuker (1995)

Dragons and Unicorns: A Natural History (1992)
posted by snuffleupagus at 6:34 AM on November 9, 2023

Or maybe on these goodreads lists of bestiaries.

Maybe The Book of the Dragon by H. Gustavo Ciruelo Cabral? Originally 1991.
posted by snuffleupagus at 6:49 AM on November 9, 2023

Best answer: One more via this LJ post on "Dragons in Urban Fantasy:"

Dragons: The Modern Infestation (Pamela Wharton Blanpied, 1980)
Blurb: "This entire book is a straightfaced "report" on the lives of dragons and their (re)discovery by humans. The report contains everything from data to sketches to excerpts from letters among the renowned researchers, and the aerial photos are not to be missed."
Reviewer Consensus: A hilarious send-up of a scientific report.
Bax's Notes: My high school library had a copy of the book. It's really not about anything we would recognize as mythologically dragons (typical photos in the book are of sinuous sand dunes or dragon-shaped clouds), but it's a clever piece of worldbuilding.

posted by snuffleupagus at 7:10 AM on November 9, 2023 [8 favorites]

Best answer: snuffleupagus has it; Dragons: The Modern Infestation at Google Books shows page 108's sketch of Mateo.
posted by Iris Gambol at 10:30 AM on November 9, 2023 [5 favorites]

Response by poster: Thank you! Wow. I would say "unbelievable" but of course I've seen this happen lots (which is why I came here).

Thanks everyone!

(Also, wow, I never was going to remember that title)
posted by doteatop at 5:55 PM on November 9, 2023 [1 favorite]