By comparing and contrasting three texts from the Gothic canon; Radcliffe's A Romance of the Forest, Austen's Northanger Abbey and finally Bronte's Jane Eyre, A Journey of a Thousand Miles maps women's progress towards self-authorship, self-ownership and self-actualisation; through both their own adventures as female writers within a male dominated tradition and the journeys undertaken by their fictional female counterparts. Paying close attention to the boundaries laid out for these women; authors and heroines alike, we see them beginning to forge paths of their own; gaining awareness, education and the understanding necessary to define the limits of their own sex.