This paper discusses "Onna Ryokaku" (A female passenger), a short story translated from English by Morita Shiken in 1888. Though the original work cannot be exactly identified, it has become clear that the story was written by a British-born writer, R. Davey, the title of which was "A Queen's Adventure". Conducting a survey of the circumstances of its publication revealed interesting aspects of how literary works were circulated in the late 19th century British Empire.

　"A Queen's Adventure" was first published in an American magazine in 1874 and was reprinted several times in several American newspapers. A decade later, it was reprinted in a British magazine and then reprinted in newspapers published in different parts of the British Empire reflecting the popularity of the newly emerging genre of the newspaper-novel. It can thus be assumed that Morita Shiken's "Onna Ryokaku" was translated from one of these newspaper versions.

　"A Queen's Adventure" particularly attracted the editors of the time as it dealt with a theme that resonated with the general public's growing interest in the idea of holding passports for traveling. On top of this, in the case of "Onna Ryokaku", the story circulated well in the socio-cultural atmosphere of Japan in the period following the end of the Freedom and People's Rights Movement, when Yūbin Hōchi Shimbun was promoting the idea of cooperation between the public and private spheres. Yūbin Hōchi Shimbun was actively introducing new trends in the West, and Shiken, a newspaper editor himself, was eager to contribute to nurturing the readers' humanistic intelligence as editor of the new media.