[2] In Italy, Alexander's early artistic output was as part of her mother's charity work and she wrote about and drew portraits of poor Tuscan farmers as gifts for wealthy American donors to their cause.

In the process, she became familiar with local folkways and customs, collecting songs and stories and translating them for publication.

The book drew from the work of celebrated story-teller Beatrice Bernardi of Pian degli Ontani.

[2] After Ruskin's death, Alexander published Tuscan Songs (1897) and The Hidden Servants and Other Very Old Stories Told Over (1900).

Her book The Story of Ida inspired poems by James Russell Lowell and John Greenleaf Whittier[1]