María Amparo Ruiz de Burton — Who Would Have Thought It? with Quite Literally Books

Send us Fan Mail The first Mexican-American woman novelist to be published in English, María Amparo Ruiz de Burton chose a surprising subject matter—East Coast high society—for her first novel, Who Would Have Thought It? She was uniquely qualified to skewer the hypocrisy of Northern abolitionists, lampoon corrupt politicians and even mock Abraham Lincoln as a figure she deems more “party-boy” than presidential. Bremond Berry MacDougall and Lisa Endo Cooper, founders of Quite Literally Books, join us to discuss their new reissue of this 1872 book and why it still resonates so loudly in the era of Donald Trump. Discussed in this episode: María Amparo Ruiz de Burton Who Would Have Thought It? By María Amparo Ruiz de Burton Quite Literally Books Lost Ladies of Lit Episode No. 246 on Jessie Redmon Fauset Lost Ladies of Lit Episode No. 79 on Frances Harper’s Iola LeRoy Little Women by Louisa May Alcott Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs Henry S. Burton Mary Todd Lincoln Abraham Lincoln Varina Davis James Baldwin Dr. Jessie Alemán 1863 Habeas Corpus Suspension Act The Squatter and the Don by María Amparo Ruiz de Burton on Project Gutenberg Support the show For episodes and show notes, visit: LostLadiesofLit.com

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María Amparo Ruiz de Burton — Who Would Have Thought It? with Quite Literally Books is an episode from Lost Ladies of Lit by Amy Helmes & Kim Askew.

This episode is 42:00 long.

This episode was published on Apr 14, 2026.

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