Lewis Carroll – In His Own Account by Jenny Woolf (Jabberwock Press, 2005) is an annotated transcription of Dodgson’s bank account from 1856 to 1900 (two years after his death) and shows that Carroll was in the red for most of this period, thus contradicting “his reputation for financial sharpness” (Jenny Woolf’s piece on the book in the Times Literary Supplement, “Sounds and Sense”, no. 5315, 11 February 2005, a generous excerpt is available through Blogcritics.org).

The book also shows that, notwithstanding the overdrafts, he was generously helping both individuals and institutions, most notably those concerned with “the plight of the many women and children who were trafficked and abused by the Victorian sex trade” and is therefore relevant to the ongoing war over his sexual preferences (see also): “these donations were not made for show, but were kept entirely private.”

Also see an interview with Jenny Woolf in the Camden New Journal and a short post at A Wasp in a Wig.

Jabberwock now has a page which provides errata, new information and “other useful comments” about the book.