Portsmouth, a port city in Hampshire, England, is located mainly on Portsea Island around 70 miles south-west of London with a population of 205,400. The city traces its history back to the Roman times. Portsmouth remained a significant naval port for centuries, has been the world's oldest dry dock and served as England's first line of defence in 1545 when the French invasion took place. 1859 saw the building of Palmerston Forts to avoid another anticipated attack from mainland Europe. At the height of the British Empire throughout Pax Britannica, it remained the most heavily fortified port.
With the first mass production line being set up in the city, it became the world’s most industrialised city. During the Second World War, the city was bombed extensively in the Portsmouth Blitz, resulting in the death of 930 people. In 1982, troops to liberate the Falkland Islands were deployed from the city's naval base. The Queen left for Hong Kong in her yacht Britannia to oversee the transfer of Hong Kong in 1997.
Literature
Portsmouth features in Jonathan Meade's novel ‘Pompey’ in which it is inhabited criminals. In Jane Austen's novel Mansfield Park, Fanny Park, the lead character lives in Portsmouth and is also the setting for most of the closing chapters of Austen ‘s novel. Charles Dickens in ‘The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby’ has portrayed Nicholas and Smike making way to Portsmouth where they get involved in a theatrical troupe. In Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin series, Portsmouth is most often the port from which Captain Jack Aubrey's ships sail.
Many notable crime novels were set in Portsmouth including Graham Hurley's D.I. Faraday/D.C. Winter novels and C. J. Sansom's Tudor crime novel Heartstone. Portsmouth Fairy Tales for Grown Ups, was published in 2014 using locations around Portsmouth for the stories and has stories from crime novelists William Sutton, Diana Bretherick, and others.
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