Who Would Have Thought It? (A Novel)

Who Would Have Thought It? (1872) is a novel by Mexican American author María Amparo Ruiz de Burton. The novel, Ruiz de Burton’s debut, is a semi-autobiographical story of race, class, and gender set before and during the American Civil War. Central to its focus are the ways in which the Californio elite were forced into competition with Anglo-American settlers arriving out west after the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ended the Mexican American War.

While on a geological expedition in the American Southwest, Dr. Norval is tasked with rescuing a young girl from her Apache captors. He finds Maria Dolores Medina, a ten-year-old girl from a prominent Californio family of Spanish-Mexican heritage, and is asked by the girl’s mother to adopt her and take her back to New England. Norval promises to do so and returns with the girl, surprising of his wife who harbors deep racial prejudices and mistrusts anyone born into the Catholic faith. As the American Civil War begins, Dr. Norval, a Democrat, is suspected of harboring Confederate sympathies and is eventually forced into exile in Egypt. When he leaves, Lola stays behind with his wife. Both personal and political, historical and fictional, Who Would Have Thought It? is a novel that captures a complex moment in American history without losing sight of the humanity at its heart.

With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of María Amparo Ruiz de Burton’s Who Would Have Thought It? is a classic of Mexican American literature reimagined for modern readers.