On November 14, 1908, a very ill Jack London, having left the Snark in Guadalcanal, arrived in Sydney, Australia for medical treatment. He was hospitalized and treated for psoriasis and fistulas. It was while London was in Australia that he reluctantly decided to end the Snark voyage and return to the United States so as to regain his health and address another in a series of financial crises.

After his release from the hospital, the editor of the Australian Star asked London to report on the Jack Johnson-Tommy Burns world championship-boxing match on December 26. London agreed and wrote his report in the newspaper article "In a Modern Stadium" that appeared in the Star on December 28, 2023 and in the New York Herald as "Jack London Says Johnson Made a Noise Like a Lullaby" on December 27, 1908. This article was collected in Jack London Reports as the "Burns-Johnson Fight". While in Australia, London wrote a series of six more articles for the Star only two of which have been reprinted ("Strike Methods: American and Australian" in Philip Foner's The Social Writings of Jack London and "A Bit of Data on the Japanese Question" reprinted as "If Japan Wakens China" in the December 1909 issue of Sunset magazine and in Jack London Reports). The other four will be printed here for the first time outside Australia. They will be presented in chronological order.

Copyright © 2005 by Dan Wichlan
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