Francesca Alexander also known as Fanny Alexander, was an American illustrator, author, and translator from the Italian.

She was born Esther Frances Alexander in Boston, Massachusetts and educated at home. At age 16, her family moved to Florence, Italy, where she collected folk songs, tales, and customs. Her first batch of translations of Tuscan

Tuscany

Tuscany is a region in Italy. It has an area of about 23,000 square kilometres and a population of about 3.75 million inhabitants. The regional capital is Florence ....

 songs and stories, later published as Roadside Songs of Tuscany, was drawn from a celebrated story-teller, Beatrice Bernardi of Pian degli Ontani. In it Alexander translated Bartolomeo Casenti's ottava rima ballad (1616) about a little servant girl turned saint, with Italian original opposite the translated English stanzas. Alexander illustrated her translations with drawings done in a fine and highly personal style.

In 1882 she met John Ruskin

John Ruskin

John Ruskin was the leading English art critic of the Victorian era, also an art patron, draughtsman, watercolourist, a prominent social thinker and philanthropist. He wrote on subjects ranging from geology to architecture, myth to ornithology, literature to education, and botany to political...

, who was to be a close friend until his death. He was deeply impressed by her Roadside Songs and purchased it along with a second manuscript that he published in 1883 as The Story of Ida with its author listed simply as "Francesca." The volume enjoyed several British and American editions. Ruskin then edited and published her Roadside Songs in 1884-85, and a third collection, Christ's Folk in the Apennines

Apennine mountains

The Apennines or Apennine Mountains or Greek oros but just as often used alone as a noun. The ancient Greeks and Romans typically but not always used "mountain" in the singular to mean one or a range; thus, "the Apennine mountain" refers to the entire chain and is translated "the Apennine...

, in 1887-89. An intimate correspondence between Ruskin, Alexander, and her mother continued for some years.

After Ruskin's death Alexander published Tuscan Songs (1897) and The Hidden Servants and Other Very Old Stories Told Over (1900). She was blind and in poor health in her final years, and died in Florence on January 21, 1917. Her papers are collected in the Boston Athenæum

Boston Athenæum

Boston Athenæum is one of the oldest independent libraries in the United States. It is also one of only sixteen extant membership libraries, meaning that patrons pay a yearly subscription fee to use the Athenæum's services...

. Correspondence between Alexander and Ruskin and letters from Alexander to Ruskin's cousin and heir Joan Severn are held by the Morgan Library

Morgan Library

The Morgan Library & Museum is a museum and research library in New York City, USA. It was founded to house the private library of J. P. Morgan in 1906, which included, besides the manuscripts and printed books, some of them in rare bindings, his collection of prints and drawings...

.

Selected writings

• 1883 The Story of Ida, John Ruskin, ed. Boston: Cupples, Upham.
• 1884-85 Roadside Songs of Tuscany, Francesca Alexander, tr. and ill. John Ruskin, ed. 4 vols. New York: Wiley.
• 1887-89 Christ's Folk In The Apennini. Reminiscences of Her Friends Among the Tuscan Peasantry. London: George Allen.
• 1897 Tuscan Songs.
• 1900 The Hidden Servants and Other Very Old Stories Told Over.