What is Mina Murray's occupation before marrying Jonathan Harker in Dracula?

Before marrying Jonathan Harker, Mina Murray works as a schoolmistress in Bram Stoker’s Dracula.

Mina is introduced as a young, practical woman who teaches at a school. Her occupation reflects both the limited professional choices available to many educated Victorian women and her strong organizational abilities. She is engaged to Jonathan Harker while still using her maiden name, Mina Murray, and visits her friend Lucy Westenra at Whitby during the school holidays.

Mina’s teaching background also helps explain her competence with written records and office-like tasks. She learns shorthand and uses a typewriter, later transcribing Jonathan’s journal and Dr. Seward’s phonograph recordings. These skills allow her to turn scattered diaries, letters, telegrams, and newspaper clippings into a coherent record of Dracula’s activities.

Readers sometimes choose “governess” because that was another common Victorian occupation for educated women, or “nurse” because Mina cares for Jonathan after his escape from Dracula’s castle. In the original novel, however, her stated occupation is schoolmistress; adaptations sometimes change her profession.