Bite Me! Dracula's Medical History

Cat Irving takes the stage at Lauriston Castle on Thursday 29 October, 10:30, for a talk titled Bite Me! Dracula's Medical History. It's part of the Lauriston Castle Lectures, a series of friendly morning sessions that pair a guest speaker with coffee and a sweet treat, a chance to meet the lecturer, and an optional tour of the house, with lunch at Mimi's café on site.

Irving's talk draws on medical history to trace the diseases that fed vampire mythology and the science Bram Stoker used to build his creation. It's a look at the real-world conditions that helped shape one of the most famous monsters in literature, and how the medical anxieties of the time found their way into the story.

The setting is Lauriston Castle itself: a 16th-century tower house with Victorian extensions and early 20th-century interiors, surrounded by gardens that open free to the public all year round and look out across the Firth of Forth. 2026 is a centenary year for the estate, marking a century since the Reids, its last Edwardian owners, left the house and grounds to the nation. The rooms still hold the collections they left behind, from fine furniture and ceramics to personal belongings, including a sitting room that keeps a newspaper reporting the sinking of the Titanic.

Tickets are £10 for the lecture alone, or £16 if you want to add a tour of the castle; both include coffee and cake. The talk starts at 10:30 on Thursday 29 October at Lauriston Castle and Gardens, 2a Cramond Rd S, Edinburgh EH4 6AD.