Twilight (stylized as twilight) is a young-adult vampire-romance novel[3][4] by author Stephenie Meyer. It is the first book in the Twilight series, and introduces seventeen-year-old Isabella “Bella” Swan, who moves from Phoenix, Arizona to Forks, Washington and finds her life in danger when she falls in love with a vampire, Edward Cullen. The novel is followed by New Moon, Eclipse, and Breaking Dawn.
Twilight was published in 2005 to a lukewarm reception. Some praised the novel’s tone and its portrayal of common teenage emotions such as alienation and rebellion. Others criticized Meyer’s prose and argued the story was lacking in character development. Nonetheless, it reached number five on the New York Times bestseller list within a month of its release[5] and eventually reached first place.[6] The novel was also named one of Publishers Weekly’s Best Children’s Books of 2005.[7]
The film adaptation, released in 2008, was a commercial success, grossing more than $392 million worldwide[8] and making an additional $157 million in North American DVD sales as of July 2009.[9] The book was the biggest-selling of 2008;[10] in 2009, it was the second-biggest selling, losing only to its sequel New Moon.[11]
As of 2008, Twilight has been translated into 37 different languages.[12]
Bella Swan moves from sunny Phoenix, Arizona to rainy Forks, Washington to live with her father, Charlie, while her mother, Rene, travels with her new husband, Phil Dwyer, a minor league baseball player. Bella attracts much attention at her new school and makes friends quickly. Much to her dismay, several boys compete for shy Bella’s attention.
When Bella is seated next to Edward Cullen in class on her first day of school, Edward seems utterly repulsed by her. He disappears for a few days, but warms up to Bella upon his return; their newfound relationship reaches a climax when Bella is nearly crushed by Tyler’s van in the school parking lot. Edward saves Bella when he comes to her rescue and stops the van with only his hand.
Bella annoys Edward with questions about how he saved her life. She hears that Edward and his family are vampires who drink animal blood after being told the legends of the local Quileute tribe by Jacob Black (a character who becomes more important in the later books in the series). Bella is saved by Edward again in Port Angeles when she is almost attacked, and Edward appears in his shiny silver Volvo. He then takes Bella to dinner and then on the drive home she tells him a theory that he is a vampire. Edward tells her that he tried to stay away from her at first because the scent of her blood was too desirable to him. Over time, Edward and Bella fall in love.
Their relationship is affected when a nomad vampire coven arrives in Forks. James, a tracker vampire who is intrigued by the Cullens’ relationship with a human, wants to hunt Bella for sport. The Cullens attempt to distract James by separating Bella and Edward, and send Bella to hide in a hotel in Phoenix. There, Bella receives a phone call from James, who claims to be holding her mother captive (which she later realizes was a trick). When Bella surrenders herself, James attacks her. Before James can kill her, Edward, along with the other Cullens, rescues her and destroy James, but not before James bites Bella’s hand and snaps the bone in her leg. Edward successfully sucks the venom from her bloodstream and prevents her from becoming a vampire, after which she is taken to a hospital where they tell the doctors she fell down two flights of stairs and through a window. Upon returning to Forks, Bella and Edward attend their school prom, and Bella expresses her desire to become a vampire, but Edward refuses.
Bella’s desire to become a vampire increases throughout the series, but Edward refuses each time because he hates being immortal. He does not wish this upon Bella.
Meyer claims that the idea for Twilight came to her in a dream on June 2, 2003. Meyer claims that her dream was about a human girl and a vampire who was in love with her but thirsted for her blood. Based on this dream, Meyer wrote the draft of what is now Chapter 13 of the book.[16] The first drafts were titled Forks instead of Twilight before the publisher requested to change the title. At first, she didn’t use names to refer to Bella and Edward, instead she used ‘She’ and ‘He’. Later on, “Charlotte Bront’s Mr. Rochester” and “Jane Austen’s Mr. Ferrars” led her to choose the name Edward for her male character, while she named her female lead Isabella because it would have been the name she would have chosen for her daughter if she had one. Rosalie and Jasper were originally named Carol and Ronald.[17]
Meyer continued writing to the end chronologically, not worrying about the backstory. She lettered the chapters instead of numbering them, Chapter 13 being E. The last chapter of the first draft kept getting longer and longer, so she wrote epilogue after epilogue. However, she realized that she wanted to explore many of the events in the backstory and the reasons behind the events in the chapters, so she planned to write a 5-6 chapter backstory. Instead, these turned into twelve chapters by the time she was finished.[18] In a matter of three months she had transformed her dream into a completed novel,[19] though she claims that she never intended to publish Twilight and was writing for her own enjoyment.[20] After a summer of detachment from the world, immersed in writing, she finished the manuscript on August 29, 2003.[21]
Her sister’s response towards the book was enthusiastic and she persuaded Meyer to send the manuscript to literary agencies.[22] Of the 15 letters she wrote, five went unanswered, nine brought rejections, and the last was a positive response from Jodi Reamer of Writers House.[23] It was later revealed that Meyer had merely sent out letters to literary agents inquiring if they would be interested in a 130,000-word manuscript about teenage vampires.[24] Meyer’s letter received an initial response expressing interest from an inexperienced assistant at Writers House who did not know that literary agents expect young adult books to come in at about 40,000 to 60,000 words in length.[24] It was only because of that lucky mistake that Reamer eventually read Meyer’s manuscript and was able to sign her up as a client.[24] During the editing process, a chapter that used to be Chapter 20 was cut out of the manuscript along with Emmett’s account of his bear attack and some parts of the epilogue.[25]
Stephenie Meyer has stated that the apple on the cover represents the forbidden fruit from the Book of Genesis. It symbolizes Bella and Edward’s love, which is forbidden, similar to the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, as is implied by the quote from Genesis 2:17 that is quoted at the beginning of the book. It also represents Bella’s knowledge of what good and evil are, and the choice that she has in partaking of the “forbidden fruit”, Edward, or choosing not to see him.[26] Meyer also says, “It asks if you are going to bite in and discover the frightening possibilities around you or refuse and stay safe in the comfortable world you know.”[27] An alternative cover features Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson, the actors who play the lead characters in the film adaptation.
Twilight was initially rejected by 14 agents,[29] however, eight publishers competed for the rights to publish Twilight in the 2003 auction.[23]Little, Brown and Company originally bid for $300,000, but Meyer’s agent asked for $1 million; the publishers finally settled on $750,000 for three books.[30]Twilight was published in 2005 with a print run of 75,000 copies.[23] It debuted at #5 on the New York Times Best Seller list within a month of its release,[5] and later peaked at #1.[6] Foreign rights to the novel were sold to over 26 countries.[31]
In October 2008, Twilight was ranked #26 in USA Today’s list of “Bestselling Books of Last 15 Years”.[32] Later, the book went on to become the best-selling book of 2008.[33] and the second biggest selling of 2009, only behind its sequel New Moon.[34]
Initial reviews for Twilight were generally positive, with Publishers Weekly called Meyer one of the most “promising new authors of 2005″.[35]The Times praised the book for capturing “perfectly the teenage feeling of sexual tension and alienation”,[36] and Amazon.com hailed the book as “[d]eeply romantic and extraordinarily suspenseful”.[37] Hillias J. Martin of School Library Journal stated, “Realistic, subtle, succinct, and easy to follow, Twilight will have readers dying to sink their teeth into it”,[38] and Norah Piehl of TeenReads wrote, “Twilight is a gripping blend of romance and horror”.[39]Publishers Weekly’s starred review described Bella’s “infatuation with outsider Edward”, their risky relationship, and “Edward’s inner struggle” as a metaphor for sexual frustration accompanying adolescence.[40]Booklist wrote, “There are some flaws herea plot that could have been tightened, an over reliance on adjectives and adverbs to bolster dialoguebut this dark romance seeps into the soul.”[41] Christopher Middleton of The Daily Telegraph called the book a “high school drama with a bloody twist … no secret, of course, at whom this book is aimed, and no doubt, either, that it has hit its mark.[42] Jennifer Hawes of The Post and Courier said, “Twilight, the first book in Stephenie Meyer’s series, gripped me so fiercely that I called the nearest teenager I know and begged for her copy after I misplaced my own.”[43] Roberta Goli of Suite101.com gave the novel a positive review, saying that while “the first half of the novel lacks action”, the writing is “fluid” and the story “interesting”. She also praised the depth of emotion shown between the main characters for pinpointing “the angst of teenage love.”
Kirkus gave a more mixed review, noting that, “[Twilight] is far from perfect: Edward’s portrayal as monstrous tragic hero is overly Byronic, and Bella’s appeal is based on magic rather than character. Nonetheless, the portrayal of dangerous lovers hits the spot; fans of dark romance will find it hard to resist.”[44] The New York Times review stated, “The premise of Twilight is attractive and compelling who hasn’t fantasized about unearthly love with a beautiful stranger? but the book suffers at times from overearnest, amateurish writing. A little more “showing” and a lot less “telling” might have been a good thing, especially some pruning to eliminate the constant references to Edward’s shattering beauty and Bella’s undying love.” [45] Although the Daily Telegraph later listed Twilight at number 32 on its list of “100 books that defined the noughties”, it said that the novel was “Astonishing, mainly for the ineptitude of [Meyer’s] prose”.[46] Elizabeth Hand said in a review for the Washington Post, “Meyer’s prose seldom rises above the serviceable, and the plotting is leaden”.[47]
Twilight was on the American Library Association’s (ALA) Top Ten List of the Most Frequently Challenged Books of 2010, for containing a “religious viewpoint” and “violence”.[48] The Twilight series was on the same list in 2009 for being “sexually explicit”, “unsuited to age group”, and having a “religious viewpoint”.[49] A NYC Psychologist addressed issues in the Twilight series and how it relates to women and expectations of healthy relationships versus illusion based relationships with her short film “Into The Twilight Haze”.[50]
Twilight was adapted into a film by Summit Entertainment. The film was directed by Catherine Hardwicke and stars Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson as protagonists Isabella Swan and Edward Cullen, respectively. The screenplay was adapted by Melissa Rosenberg. The movie was released in theaters in the United States on November 21, 2008,[51] and on DVD on March 21, 2009.[52] The DVD was released in Australia on April 22, 2009.[53]
On July 15, 2009, Entertainment Weekly confirmed rumors that a graphic novel adaptation of Twilight was in the works. The book was drawn by Korean artist Young Kim and published by Yen Press. Stephenie Meyer reviews every panel herself. According to EW, “it doesn’t look simply like an artist’s rendering of Kristen Stewart and Rob Pattinson. In fact, the characters seem to be an amalgam of Meyer’s literary imagination and the actors’ actual looks.” EW magazine published finished illustrations of Edward, Bella, and Jacob in their July 17, 2009 issue.[54] The first part of the graphic novel was released on March 16, 2010.[55]
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