Abstract
With the opening of Japan during the Bakumatsu and Meiji periods, travelers poured into the country,
eager to experience for themselves a culture that had previously been, until only recently, entirely closed to
them. The end of Japanese exclusion also corresponded with the beginning of large-scale international
tourism. The “globetrotting” international traveler became a feature of Meiji Japan, and while these
travelers were being introduced to Japan by native Japanese guides, some of them produced first-person
narratives of their experiences here which subsequently served as guides for readers back home. These
narratives were illustrated with images that helped to create a visual culture that dominated Western
impressions of Japan. The following is a partial transcript of the keynote address given at the Japan
Association for Interpreting and Translation Studies’ 15th annual conference held on September 13th 2014,
which looked at English-language guidebooks for foreign travelers to Japan during the Meiji Period. The
visual record illustrating other travel narratives – from circumnavigators like cyclist Thomas Stevens and
rival journalists Nellie Bly and Elizabeth Bisland, to photojournalist Herbert G. Ponting, and children’s
fiction author Edward Greey – was also considered.
