Portsmouth anniversary in 2016. In literature, Portsmouth is the chief location for Jonathan Meades' 1993 novel "Pompey", in which it is inhabited largely by incestuous and necrophiliac criminals. Since the release of his novel, Meades has presented a TV programme documenting Victorian architecture in Portsmouth Dockyard. In Jane Austen's novel "Mansfield Park", Portsmouth is the hometown of the main character Fanny Price, and is the setting of most of the closing chapters of the novel. In Charles Dickens' novel "The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby", main protagonists Nicholas and Smike make their way to Portsmouth and get involved in a
Portsmouth theatrical troupe. In Patrick O'Brian's nautical historical Aubrey-Maturin series, Portsmouth is most often the port from which Captain Jack Aubrey's ships sail. Victorian novelist and historian Sir Walter Besant documented his childhood in the town in the 1840s in "By Celia's Arbour: A Tale of Portsmouth Town". The book is notable for its precise descriptions of the town before the defensive walls were removed. Southsea features in "The History of Mr Polly" by H. G. Wells under the fictional name of "Port Burdock", which he describes as "one of the three townships that are grouped around the Port Burdock naval