Twilight (novel series)

Lore & Background

The series begins with Twilight, in which Bella Swan moves from Phoenix, Arizona to Forks, Washington and falls in love with Edward Cullen, a vampire who drinks animal blood. In New Moon, Edward leaves Bella, who then develops a friendship with Jacob Black, a werewolf. Eclipse sees Victoria creating a vampire army to attack Bella, while Bella chooses Edward over Jacob. Breaking Dawn covers Bella and Edward's marriage, her pregnancy, and her transformation into a vampire after giving birth to their daughter Renesmee. The series is told primarily from Bella's point of view, with the epilogue of Eclipse and part of Breaking Dawn from Jacob Black's perspective.

Reader's Guide

The Twilight series has had a significant cultural impact, becoming a global phenomenon among young adults and winning multiple awards, including the 2008 British Book Award for Children's Book of the Year for Breaking Dawn and the 2009 Kids' Choice Award for Favorite Book. An animated television series based on Midnight Sun is in development at Netflix.

Did You Know?

• Midnight Sun, a retelling of Twilight from Edward Cullen's point of view, was published in 2020.

Narrative Arc & Point of View

The series traces the later teen years of Bella Swan, a girl who uproots from Phoenix, Arizona to settle in the damp, rain-soaked town of Forks, Washington, where she joins her father. The move is prompted by her mother's decision to travel with her new husband, a minor league baseball player. Their love story forms the backbone of all four novels, but the plot is constantly threatened by hostile vampire covens, a vengeful werewolf named Jacob Black, and the authoritarian Volturi. Narratively, the books are told almost entirely through Bella's first-person lens, with only two departures: the epilogue of Eclipse and the latter portion of Breaking Dawn are rendered from Jacob's perspective.

Commercial Dominance & Recognition

Since the debut novel appeared in 2005, the Twilight saga has amassed staggering global commercial success. The audience skews heavily toward young adults, yet the books have also attracted formal industry honors. Breaking Dawn was named the 2008 British Book Award winner for Children's Book of the Year, and the complete series took home the 2009 Kids' Choice Award for Favorite Book. The franchise's reach extended into graphic storytelling as well: artist Young Kim's Twilight: The Graphic Novel, Vol.

Film Adaptations & Visual Media

Summit Entertainment brought the novels to the silver screen as The Twilight Saga film series. The cinematic production also created a feedback loop with the source material: while shooting the first film, director Catherine Hardwicke and actor Robert Pattinson were granted access to completed chapters of what would become Midnight Sun, giving them a deeper sense of Edward Cullen's inner life. The franchise has continued to branch into other visual formats. Looking further ahead, an animated television series based on Midnight Sun is currently in development at Netflix, indicating that the saga's visual storytelling is far from exhausted.

Reimaginings & the Expanding Universe

Meyer has repeatedly returned to the Twilight universe to examine it through new lenses. Notably, this version reaches a more definitive conclusion, effectively precluding continuation through the remaining three novels. In 2020, Midnight Sun offered readers the events of the original Twilight filtered through Edward Cullen's own consciousness rather than Bella's, a perspective Meyer confirmed would be the sole book she intended to rewrite from his point of view. By August of that same year, Meyer also announced she was developing two additional novels set within the same universe, with the intention of completing an original work before continuing the saga.