Abraham Van Helsing
In the novel, Van Helsing is called in by his former student, Dr. Seward, to assist with the mysterious illness of Lucy Westenra. Van Helsing's friendship with Seward is based in part upon an unknown prior event in which Van Helsing suffered a grievous wound and Seward saved his life by sucking out the gangrene. It is Van Helsing who first realizes that Lucy is the victim of a vampire and he guides Dr. Seward and his friends in their efforts to save Lucy.
In the novel, from the annotations of Leonard Wolf, it is mentioned that Van Helsing had a son who died. Van Helsing says that his son, had he lived, would have had a similar appearance to another character, Arthur Holmwood. Consequently, Van Helsing developed a particular fondness of Holmwood. Van Helsing's wife went insane after their son's death, but as a devout Catholic, he refuses to divorce her. ("with my poor wife dead to me, but alive by Church's law, though no wits, all gone, even I, who am faithful husband to this now-no-wife...")
Van Helsing is one of the few characters in the novel who is fully physically described in one place.
In chapter 14, Mina describes him as: "a man of medium weight, strongly built, with his shoulders set back over a broad, deep chest and a neck well balanced on the trunk as the head is on the neck. The poise of the head strikes me at once as indicative of thought and power. The head is noble, well-sized, broad, and large behind the ears. The face, clean-shaven, shows a hard, square chin, a large resolute, mobile mouth, a good-sized nose, rather straight, but with quick, sensitive nostrils, that seem to broaden as the big bushy brows come down and the mouth tightens. The forehead is broad and fine, rising at first almost straight and then sloping back above two bumps or ridges wide apart, such a forehead that the reddish hair cannot possibly tumble over it, but falls naturally back and to the sides. Big, dark blue eyes are set widely apart, and are quick and tender or stern with the man's moods.
" Van Helsing's personality is described by John Seward, his former student, thus: He is a seemingly arbitrary man, this is because he knows what he is talking about better than any one else. He is a philosopher and a metaphysician, and one of the most advanced scientists of his day, and he has, I believe, an absolutely open mind. This, with an iron nerve, a temper of the ice-brook, and indomitable resolution, self-command, and toleration exalted from virtues to blessings, and the kindliest and truest heart that beats, these form his equipment for the noble work that he is doing for mankind, work both in theory and practice, for his views are as wide as his all-embracing sympathy.
[Dracula, ch.9] In addition to this, Van Helsing has a well-developed, albeit ironic sense of humor. When Arthur Holmwood/Godalming mournfully proclaims that the transfusion of his blood into the dying Lucy made her truly his bride, Van Helsing laughs (though not in Arthur Holmwood/Godalming's hearing) and tells Jack Seward that if such is the case, both Van Helsing and Lucy are guilty of adultery. Arthur was not alone in donating blood; Seward, his friend Quincey Morris, and Van Helsing himself have done it as well.
Adaptations of the novel have tended to play up Van Helsing's role as the vampire expert, sometimes to the extent that it is depicted as his major occupation. In the novel, however, Dr. Seward is unaware of this side of his old friend, and requests Van Helsing's assistance simply because Lucy's affliction has him baffled and Van Helsing "knows as much about obscure diseases as any one in the world."
Count Dracula, having acquired ownership of England’s Carfax Abbey through solicitor Jonathan Harker, moved to the abbey and began menacing England. His victims included Lucy Westernra, who lived in Whitby. The aristocratic girl had suitors such as Jack Seward, Arthur Holmwood, and Quincy Morris, and had a friend in Mina Murray, Jonathan Harker’s fiancée. Jack Seward, who worked as a doctor in an insanity asylum - where one of patients, the incurably zoophagous Renfield, secretly served Dracula - contacted Van Helsing about Lucy Westernra’s peculiar loss of blood. Van Helsing, recognizing the mark of the vampire, tried to save Lucy, but she died, returning as a vampire. Eventually, Van Helsing and Arthur destroyed the vampiric Lucy.
Van Helsing and his band of vampire hunters pursued Dracula back to Transylvania. There, they chased him down and cornered him. Armed with knives, Jonathan Harker and Quincy Morris decapitated Dracula and impaled his heart. Dracula's body then crumbled to dust.
Later, Van Helsing took an elder's role in regard to the young Quincey Harker, who was the son of Jonathan and Mina.
Information gathered from Wikipedia
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