Art by Pablo Marcos
Sir Arthur "Art" Holmwood (later Lord Godalming) is a fictional character of Bram Stoker's novel Dracula. He was the fiancee of Lucy Westenra, and is best friends with the other two men who proposed to her on the very same day - Quincey Morris and Dr. John Seward. He is the one who drives a wooden stake into Lucy after she becomes a vampire and helps hunt down Count Dracula. After Holmwood's father dies, he succeeds his father as Lord Godalming. Holmwood went on to become happily married.
In the Novel[]
Holmwood is the only son of Lord Godalming who wins the great and engagement of Lucy Westenra after she was proposed to on the same day by Arthur's best friends, Quincey Morris and Doctor John Seward. Holmwood is the one who drives a wooden stake into Lucy after she becomes a vampire and helps hunt Count Dracula.
Arthur's father passes away midway through the novel and he inherits the family fortune. Through his wealth, Arthur funds his friends' Operation of vanquishing Dracula. He raided Dracula's many lairs throughout London as well as aiding in the investigation of locating the Count's many purchased estates. During the confrontation with Dracula, Quincey is killed but not before destroying the vampire one and for all.
Epilogue[]
It is mentioned in the note at the end of the novel, written seven years after Dracula's death, that Holmwood is now married happily to an Unnamed woman.
In other media[]
Though a major character in the novel, Arthur Holmwood has often been omitted from various adaptations of the story. In the 1977 adaptation Count Dracula, he is merged with the Quincey Morris character and renamed Quincey Holmwood. In the 2006 adaptation Dracula, Holmwood is a far more central character than he is in the novel and portrayed in a much more negative light, aiding in Dracula's travels to England in the belief that Dracula may be able to cure him of the family syphilis that prevents him from consummating his marriage, only for Dracula to tear his head off in the final confrontation. To date he has been portrayed in film and television by:
- Michael Gough in Dracula (1958)
- Simon Ward in Dracula (1973)
- Richard Barnes (as Quincey Holmwood) in Count Dracula (1977)
- Cary Elwes in Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992)
- Conrad Hornby in Dracula (2002)
- Stephane Leonard in Dracula: Pages from a Virgin's Diary (2002)
- Dan Stevens in Dracula (2006)
In the 1938 Mercury Theatre radio production of Dracula, Holmwood's character was combined with John Seward's and renamed Arthur Seward. He was voiced by Orson Welles, who also voiced Dracula in the adaptation. The 2004 film Dracula 3000 features a character named Arthur Holmwood, though it is a futuristic science fiction/horror film and this Holmwood is not intended to be the same person. In the full motion video based game Dracula Unleashed, Holmwood is played by Jay Nickerson.
In the novel Anno Dracula by Kim Newman, in which the events of Stoker's Dracula ended with the villain slaying Abraham Van Helsing and subsequently conquering the United Kingdom, Holmwood is again a major character. Having himself become a vampire, he is now a top aide to the new Prime Minister, Lord Ruthven. In this version, Holmwood, though outwardly kind and genteel, is actually a megalomaniac who hopes to eventually use his new vampiric powers to usurp Ruthven and, eventually, Dracula himself.