Guide to Twilight

Twilight Characters: Bella, Edward, Jacob and the Cullens

A girl, a family of vampires who skip the human menu and a pack of wolves

By Tori BooksUpdated November 20268 min readContains spoilers

Stephenie Meyer

Bella Swan

Bella is the narrator of the four main books. At seventeen she leaves sunny Phoenix to live with her father Charlie, the police chief of Forks, and she sees herself as clumsy and ordinary. What makes her unusual is a mind that Edward, who can read every other thought around him, cannot hear at all. By the end of the saga she has made the choice the whole story builds toward.

Edward Cullen

Edward was born Edward Masen in Chicago on 20 June 1901. In 1918, dying of the Spanish flu, he was turned by Carlisle, and he has been seventeen ever since. He reads minds, plays the piano, drives fast and spends most of the first book trying to keep away from a girl whose scent tempts him more than anyone's ever has. Midnight Sun retells Twilight from his side.

Jacob Black

Jacob is two years younger than Bella, the warm, easygoing son of her father's best friend, Billy Black. In New Moon he becomes the friend who pulls her through the worst months of her life. Then he discovers that the old Quileute legends are true and that he can take the form of a huge wolf. His feelings for Bella make him Edward's rival, until Breaking Dawn changes everything about his place in the family.

Carlisle, Esme and the Cullen family

Carlisle is the head of the family, a doctor who has spent centuries training himself to resist human blood so he can heal people. He turned Edward, Esme, Rosalie and Emmett, each when they were close to death. Esme, his wife, is the warm mother of the household; she came to him after the loss of her baby, broken and near the end of her life.

Alice sees the future, though her visions shift whenever people change their minds. Jasper, a former soldier from the American Civil War, can feel and calm other people's emotions, and he finds animal blood the hardest diet of all. Rosalie, beautiful and fierce, resents Bella for wanting the human life she lost. Emmett, Rosalie's husband, is huge, cheerful and always ready for a fight.

Jacob's pack and the Quileutes

The Quileute wolves are young men of the tribe who change when vampires come near. Sam Uley leads the pack at first, with Paul, Jared, Embry and Quil among its members, and later Leah and her brother Seth join. A treaty from generations ago keeps the Cullens off Quileute land as long as they never bite a human.

The villains: James, Victoria, Laurent and the Volturi

James is a tracker who turns Bella into a hunt in the first book, with his mate Victoria and the more reasonable Laurent beside him. Victoria spends the next two books planning revenge and finally raises an army of newborn vampires in Seattle. Above them all are the Volturi of Volterra, led by Aro, Caius and Marcus and guarded by gifted members such as Jane, who can cause pain with a look.

How old are the Cullens really?

When Twilight begins, around 2005, Edward and Alice are both just over a hundred years old, Rosalie and Emmett are around ninety, Jasper is over 160 and Carlisle is more than three and a half centuries old. They pose as teenagers and move every few years so that nobody notices they never grow older.

Born, turned and played by

More about Twilight

Books Like Twilight

New MoonStephenie MeyerEclipseStephenie MeyerBreaking DawnStephenie MeyerA Redbird ChristmasFannie FlaggMajor Pettigrew’s Last StandHelen SimonsonAt Home in MitfordJan KaronEmpire FallsRichard RussoOutlanderDiana Gabaldon

This guide discusses the whole plot, including the ending.