[2] An avid reader of Ruskin's Fors Clavigera letters to the workmen and labourers of Great Britain, Atkinson posted in March 1873 her first subscription, along with a note of appreciation of his work.
In 1873, she became a Companion in Ruskin's political group, the Guild of St George, which attempted to put some of his ideas into practice by setting up Utopian communities.
Ruskin printed in Fors extracts from some of her letters dealing with the squalor of slum life in industrial cities and the devastation of the countryside caused by industrialisation.
Her children's books include Rosalinda and Other Fairy Tales (with Anna Cross, 1890), The Real Princess (1894), Dick's Hero (1899), Tom Leslie's Secret and What Came of it (1900) and Jack's Baby (1904).
[3] In the latter part of her life, Atkinson lived at Tynffynnon,[4] the home of Mrs Fanny Talbot (1824–1917), a wealthy landowner who had donated land and cottages in Barmouth to John Ruskin's Guild of St. George.