by Dylan Thomas

Welsh poet Dylan Thomas was born in 1914, the year that World War I began, in Swansea, on Wales's southern coast. Like his other autobiographical writings, "A Child's Christmas in Wales" is packed with details that vividly illustrate what life was like for a child growing up in Wales between the world wars. The seaside town was a small world of its own-beyond which from the child's point of view lay a bigger world of mystery and excitement.

Events in History at the Time the Short Story Takes Place

Economic and political background. Wales's vital role in the economic and political life of Great Britain forms the backdrop to Swansea's prosperity during the era in which Thomas grew up. In the economic sphere, Welsh coal mines had helped fuel the Industrial Revolution of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries...