Released annually from 2005 through 2008, the four novels chart the later teen years of Bella Swan, a girl who moves to Forks, Washington, from Phoenix, Arizona and falls in love with a 104-year-old vampire named Edward Cullen.

[2] In 2015, Meyer published a new novel in honor of the 10th anniversary of the book series, Life and Death: Twilight Reimagined, with the genders of the original protagonists switched.

[10] Bella Swan moves from Phoenix, Arizona to live with her father in Forks, Washington to allow her mother to travel with her new husband, a minor league baseball player.

On October 6, 2015, Little, Brown and Company released the Twilight Tenth Anniversary/Life and Death Dual Edition, which includes a nearly-400 page reimagining of the novel with Edward and Bella gender-swapped as Edythe and Beau.

The work retells the events of Twilight from the perspective of Edward Cullen instead of that of the series' usual narrating character Bella Swan.

2 was released on October 11, 2011,[22] and followed Volume 1 in topping The New York Times Best Seller list for Hardcover Graphic Books in its first week.

[23] In March 2010, Meyer revealed on her official website that she will be releasing a new novella in the series, The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner, which tells the story of a newborn vampire who appeared in Eclipse, on June 5, 2010.

[24] In October 2010, Little, Brown and Company announced that The Twilight Saga: The Official Illustrated Guide, a definitive encyclopedic reference for the saga including character profiles, outtakes, a conversation with Meyer, genealogical charts, maps and extensive cross-references with nearly 100 full color illustrations, was to be released on April 12, 2011, after many publication delays since 2008.

For instance, Twilight vampires have strong piercing teeth rather than fangs; they glitter in sunlight rather than burn; and they can drink animal as well as human blood.

[37] Each book in the series was inspired by and loosely based on a different literary classic: Twilight on Jane Austen's 1813 novel Pride and Prejudice, New Moon on William Shakespeare's play Romeo and Juliet, Eclipse on Emily Brontë's 1847 novel Wuthering Heights, and Breaking Dawn on a second Shakespeare play, A Midsummer Night's Dream.

[38] Meyer also states that Orson Scott Card and L. M. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables series are a big influence on her writing.

[40] Other influences on the series which Meyer has acknowledged include the 1847 novel Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë, HGTV, and the films Iron Man (2008), Somewhere in Time (1980), Stranger than Fiction (2006), and Baby Mama (2008).

[46] Megan Tingley, the Little, Brown editor who signed Meyer, said that halfway through the reading of the Twilight manuscript, she realized that she had a future bestseller in her hands.

[49] Over 1.3 million copies were sold on the first day alone, setting a record in first-day sales performance for the Hachette Book Group USA.

[51] In 2008 and 2009, the four books of the series claimed the top four spots on USA Today's year-end bestseller list, making Meyer the first author to ever achieve this feat.

There's no literary term for the quality Twilight and Harry Potter (and The Lord of the Rings) share, but you know it when you see it: their worlds have a freestanding internal integrity that makes you feel as if you should be able to buy real estate there.

[41]The Seattle Post-Intelligencer called the book a "hot new teen novel",[57] Entertainment Weekly called Meyer "the world's most popular vampire novelist since Anne Rice",[58] The New York Times described Twilight as a "literary phenomenon",[59] and Matt Arado of Daily Herald noted that the Twilight books have become the "hottest publishing phenomenon since a certain bespectacled wizard cast his spell on the world.

[61] Despite this, the series is often considered to have a wider appeal; Crystal Mack of Daily Herald said, "While teenage girls are the main audience, young boys and adults of both genders have also been swept up in the phenomenon.

[41][63] Describing the fan following of the books, the Phoenix New Times wrote, "Meyer's fandom is reminiscent of Harry Potter mania.

"[65] According to the Daily Telegraph, "Stephenie Meyer, in particular, has achieved incredible success across all the English-speaking nations and Europe and many will say that her Twilight series has filled the hole left by Harry Potter.

[70] In response to plans for the aging Forks High School to be renovated, Twilight fans have teamed up with Infinite Jewelry Co. and the West Olympic Peninsula Betterment Association to collect donations in an attempt to save the brick appearance or the building altogether.

"[73][74] However, King understood the appeal of the series, adding, "People are attracted by the stories, by the pace and in the case of Stephenie Meyer, it's very clear that she's writing to a whole generation of girls and opening up kind of a safe joining of love and sex in those books.

[76] Laura Miller of Salon.com wrote that "the characters, such as they are, are stripped down to a minimum, lacking the texture and idiosyncrasies of actual people", and said that "Twilight would be a lot more persuasive as an argument that an 'amazing heart' counts for more than appearances if it didn't harp so incessantly on Edward's superficial splendors.

Such a high-stakes treatment of abstinence reinforces the idea that Bella is powerless, an object, a fact that is highlighted when we get to the sex scenes in Breaking Dawn.

[87] However, writer Angela Aleiss of Religion News Service said that contrary to popular opinion, Mormons do permit abortion when the mother's life is in danger.

[89] Melissa Henson, Director of communication and public education for the Parents Television Council, stated: To impressionable teens, domestic violence is almost romanticized.

Smith's song "Eternal Knight" was posted on several websites accompanied by cover art which Summit claimed used its "Twilight" typeface mark.

[98] The Twilight series made the number five spot on the American Library Association's (ALA) Top Ten List of the Most Frequently Challenged Books of 2009, for being "Sexually Explicit", "Unsuited to Age Group", and having a "Religious Viewpoint".

The film was directed by Catherine Hardwicke, with Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson in the leading roles of Isabella Swan and Edward Cullen, respectively.

[citation needed] Originally called Stephenie Meyer's Day, the festival was created by the Forks City Council, and has led to an increase in tourism to the town.