To say that his work is 'dated' is a very mild comment. Even allowing for the context of the culture he was writing for, his work is full of hard to swallow and ever repeating stereotypes.

The good ones are immediately recognisable by their fair hair and their blue eyes. The Germans are strong, handsome, trustful and hard working, the French are lustful and cannot be trusted, the Spanish are proud, irascible but cowards when it comes to a fight, The English are arrogant and unfeeling, the Jews are greedy and filthy,...

On the positive side, (1) he has portrayed some persons with other skin colours than himself in a much more positive light than usual for that time and (2) he has a great ability to describe comic scenes (someone caught in his own trap, for instance; or the American Indian who had too much of a hot mustard at a dinner and tried not to turn a hair).

His later works were not my taste when I was reading them (too esoteric for me too) but to invent a figure like Marah Durimeh, a woman and a nonwhite person, as a positive role model is very unusual for early 1900s. May deserves high praise for that invention.

As a source of information about foreign countries, he is to be read with tons of salt.

Wolfgang