Voice of the Tide

Katharine Lee Bates, the author of  “America the Beautiful” and the most honored native-born resident of Falmouth, Massachusetts, lived on Cape Cod from 1859 to 1871. In Voice of the Tide, readers get to know the Falmouth of her youth and how this “little strip of silver shore” influenced her life and writing. At a young age Katharine confronts the realities of death and the hardships of a life raised by a widowed parent. She reflects on the people, lifestyles and habits of the town with its collection of crusty seafarers, diligent farmers, and pious Christians—ever maintaining her independent thought and progressive ideas. 

In Voice of the Tide, Leonard Miele introduces Katharine Lee Bates to a new generation of readers and shows how her childhood on Cape Cod influenced her thinking and writing all her life. Voice of the Tide is a reconstruction of the Falmouth that Katharine Lee Bates knew as a young girl and the writings that were inspired “by this fair sea-village, wrapt in its pearly haze.”