Around the World in Search of Dragons by Isabella Camherst

Thanks to Wikipedia 

Title: Around the World in Search of Dragons 

Author: Isabella Camherst 

Publisher: Nyland Brothers  

Source book: Voyage of the Basilisk: A Memoir by Lady Trent (Lady Trent’s Memoirs #3) by Marie Brennan 

Isabella Camherst and her associate Tom Wilker set off on a two year sea voyage in search of dragons. In order to help fund the expedition Isabella is contracted to send regular despatches to the Winfield Courrier. Despite the fact that many people read of her adventures in the newspaper, her travelogue is later collected and printed as Around the World in Search of Dragons.

Isabella and Tom travel to Va Hing in search of dragons. She buys a volume on the Yelangese taxonomy of dragons, illustrated with very fine woodcuts of dragons. She is unfortunately quite unable to get her head around Yelangese characters and struggles to understand the text.

The Book of Tyrants (probably religious) contains a story of rising seas which Isabella and her friend Suhail wonder if it might be a sign of climate change.

Books mentioned but without titles: M. Esdras de Crérat published the definitive book on sea serpents years after this expedition ended. Isabella has to wait until then to find that some of her theories are incorrect. Also Suhail has a book (one of a series) by Akhian scholar Suleiman ibn Khattusi, about Draconian inscriptions. She discovers to her fury that it includes an inscription submitted by Simon Arcott of Enwith-on-Tye. What infuriates her is that she discovered the carvings herself and shared them with Arcott obviously not expecting him to claim the discovery as his own. In a later edition of the book Arcott’s appropriation of her discovery is exposed by ibn Khattusi and Arcott is drummed out of the Society of Draconian Scholars. And Heinrich von Kleist has written extensively on the subject of mana (whatever that is).

I really enjoyed these dragon chasing books. The mix of adventure and scholarship, and in a later book, genuine surprise, is very cleverly handled. 

Again thanks to Wikipedia