The following edition of the text was used in the creation of this study guide: Feito, Virginia. Victorian Psycho. HarperCollins, 2025. Kindle AZW file.

Victorian Psycho, by Virginia Feito, is set in late-19th-century Britain. Winifred Notty arrives at Ensor House in the Yorkshire Grim Wolds to work as a governess for the wealthy Pounds family. Upon her arrival, she reflects that everyone in the house will be dead within three months.

Winifred meets Mr. and Mrs. Pounds and tells them that her mother is dead and that her father is a clergyman known as The Reverend. In reality, he is not her biological father. She confirms she is from Hopefernon, a village associated with the murder of several babies. Mr. Pounds discusses his interest in phrenology. In the narration, Winifred recalls her childhood, learning that a grave her mother claimed was her father’s belonged to a woman unrelated to her. Her mother later married The Reverend, who told Winifred about bells placed in coffins to prevent someone from being buried alive. Winifred claimed she could hear the bells ringing at night.

While exploring Ensor House, Winifred is caught by Mrs. Able biting the nose of a calf’s head in the kitchen. She later meets the children she will govern: Andrew, aged eight, and Drusilla, aged thirteen. She tells them that everyone has a demon inside them. Andrew shows her family portraits, and Winifred asks which one of the portraits is laughing. Andrew and Drusilla ask about Winifred’s previous positions. She describes caring for twins who later died suddenly and mentions that other children she looked after went missing. That night, Winifred explores the house, discovers a hidden garret, and secretly watches Mr. and Mrs. Pounds sleeping.

Winifred takes Andrew and Drusilla walking on the estate. Andrew tells her that although his parents had twelve children, only he and Drusilla are alive. They find a doe deer lying on the ground. Despite Andrew noting that it is still alive, Winifred kills it with a rock, telling the children that ending its life is the humane response to suffering.

Mr. Pounds begins taking weekly walks with Winifred, which Mrs. Pounds resents, particularly when Mr. Pounds insists that Winifred continue dining with the family. In the narration, Winifred recalls a teenage incident in which she was attacked by a rabid man and discovered she felt no fear.

After a month at Ensor House, Mrs. Pounds punishes Winifred for allowing the dog to sleep in Andrew’s bed by forcing her to sleep in the kennel. Winifred recounts her childhood. Her mother attempted to kill her as an infant, sent her to a foster home where babies were drugged and murdered, later stabbed her, and repeatedly told her she was evil.

In the present day, a painter, Mr. Johnson, is hired to paint Mrs. Pounds’s portrait. When Winifred finds Mr. Johnson secretly holding hands with Drusilla, she leaves without intervening. In the narration, she recalls being expelled from school after hiding a dead crow in her classmates’ food. Several portraits in Ensor House are later found mutilated. The blame for the mutilation is placed on a sixteen-year-old maid. She is convicted and transported to Van Diemen’s Land. Winifred comforts another maid, Miss Lamb, and becomes fixated on her.

Mrs. Pounds discovers letters from the painter Mr. Johnson in Drusilla’s desk and confronts Winifred for failing to stop their relationship. She burns the letters in front of Drusilla. Soon after, Winifred lures Andrew into a paddock where a horse kicks him in the face. Mrs. Pounds holds Winifred responsible. Mrs. Pounds dismisses Winifred but requires her to remain until after Christmas.

During a visit from Mrs. Pounds’s friends, Winifred takes a guest’s baby to the nursery and kills it. She then kidnaps another baby from a nearby farm, swaps it for the dead child, and sends the body to a convent. The visiting family unknowingly leaves with the replacement baby.

Miss Lamb confronts Winifred about her noticeably strange behavior and threatens to report her to Mr. Pounds. Winifred kills Miss Lamb with a shard of glass and conceals the body in a secret garret.

Christmas guests arrive at Ensor House. Winifred dines with the guests as Drusilla’s chaperone. The guests complain about child labor laws. One guest, Mr. Fishal, displays an Egyptian corpse he brought back from a pyramid excavation. At lunch, Drusilla drops a locket containing Mr. Johnson’s (the painter) portrait. Mrs. Pounds slaps Drusilla, and Mr. Pounds shoots the locket out of her hand. Drusilla later reveals to Winifred that Mr. Johnson has ended their relationship because he was unhappy that Drusilla kept biting him.

Winifred hallucinates that the house’s portraits are singing and stabs a figure she mistakes for a painting, killing a footman. She hides his body in the secret garret. Guests and servants begin to believe the house is haunted as disturbances continue. Winifred dreams about the baby she killed and later wakes in the stables with no memory of how she got there. Mrs. Able confronts her about a bloodstained nightdress, and Winifred claims it is menstrual blood and feigns fainting.

As Christmas Eve approaches, Mrs. Pounds lends Winifred a green dress despite its association with arsenic poisoning. At the Christmas Eve dinner, Winifred wears the green dress and becomes drunk.

On Christmas Day, Winifred tells Mr. Pounds that she is his daughter. He rejects her. During a piano recital, Winifred attacks the pianist and then murders all the guests and staff, including Mrs. Pounds and Andrew. She confronts Mr. Pounds, who insults her. He is shot by Winifred and then killed by Drusilla, who joins Winifred in killing the remaining servants. Winifred and Drusilla remain alone in Ensor House with the bodies for twelve days. When the police arrive, Drusilla ties herself up and accuses Winifred of committing the murders. Winifred is tried and convicted. She is executed before a large crowd while Drusilla watches.