The years have flown by as quickly as a half-vampire baby grows. Monday marks a full decade since Stephenie Meyer’s novel Twilight was first published on Oct. 5, 2005.
Back then, there was little clue that a young-adult vampire love story written by an observant Mormon mom who had never seen an R-rated movie would launch an entertainment juggernaut. A few years later, shortly after another one of its sequels rocketed to the top of the best-seller list—knocking a Harry Potter installment from the top spot—TIME’s Lev Grossman explained the craze to readers. He posited that readers loved Twilight, it turned out, for the same reason most vampire stories succeed:
Certainly some of their appeal lies in their fine moral hygiene: they’re an alternative to the hookup scene, Gossip Girls for good girls. There’s no drinking or smoking in Twilight, and Bella and Edward do little more than kiss. “I get some pressure to put a big sex scene in,” Meyer says. “But you can go anywhere for graphic sex. It’s harder to find a romance where they dwell on the hand-holding. I was a late bloomer. When I was 16, holding hands was just–wow.”
But it is the rare vampire novel that isn’t about sex on some level, and the Twilight books are no exception. What makes Meyer’s books so distinctive is that they’re about the erotics of abstinence. Their tension comes from prolonged, superhuman acts of self-restraint. There’s a scene midway through Twilight in which, for the first time, Edward leans in close and sniffs the aroma of Bella’s exposed neck. “Just because I’m resisting the wine doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate the bouquet,” he says. “You have a very floral smell, like lavender … or freesia.” He barely touches her, but there’s more sex in that one paragraph than in all the snogging in Harry Potter.
Read the full story, here in the TIME Vault: The Next J.K. Rowling?
Get our History Newsletter. Put today's news in context and see highlights from the archives.
- Alison Roman Won't Sugarcoat It
- If Donald Trump Is Indicted, Here's What Would Happen Next in the Process
- The World's Greatest Places of 2023
- Exclusive: Effective Altruist Leaders Were Repeatedly Warned About Sam Bankman-Fried Years Before FTX Collapsed
- Who Should Be on the 2023 TIME100? Vote Now
- Postmaster General Louis DeJoy's Surprising Second Act
- Gaslighting, Narcissist, and More Psychology Terms You're Misusing
- In This Texas County, There's No Such Thing as Moving on From COVID-19
- In Defense of Nora Ephron's Unfairly Panned Heartburn Movie
- Want Today's Top Headlines in Your Inbox? Sign Up for The Brief
