Definitely interesting. Some tales were captivating, others made me consider DNFing the book. 

Because of date of publication, this book is rife with racism and some sexism. "The times" do not exclude this from its conduct. 

Oh boy I picked this up on a craving for some supernatural short stories, not realizing this was published in 1896, and was no prepared for how atrociously racist the first short story was in this collection. At first I generally liked the writing style but the first short story was based in Yellow Peril literary tropes of the time, with a secret ancient Chinese cult threatening to overturn American ways of life via the supernatural (as well as the economy through alchemizing gold) even as East Asian women are eroticized/fetishized as exotic and mysterious by white men. Ick.