Stephenie Meyer, the best-selling author who created the Twilight series, announced that she has rewritten the original Twilight book with Bella and Edward’s genders swapped. The story appears as bonus content in the just-released Twilight Tenth Anniversary Edition.
“It’s the same story, but it is a new version of it,” said Meyer this morning on Good Morning America. When Meyer was asked by her publisher to write a foreward for the tenth anniversary edition of Twilight, she responded by giving them a re-telling of the first book. “I wanted to do something fun for the tenth anniversary.”
The new story, titled Life and Death: Twilight Reimagined, has introduced new names for Bella and Edward to better reflect their new genders. Bella’s name is Beau (which is short for Beaufort) and Edward is Edythe. The book’s description on Amazon describes the Tenth Anniversary Edition as the following:
Celebrate the tenth anniversary of Twilight! This special double-feature book includes the classic novel, Twilight, and a bold and surprising reimagining, Life and Death, by Stephenie Meyer. Packaged as an oversize, jacketed hardcover “flip book,” this edition features nearly 400 pages of new content as well as exquisite new back cover art. Readers will relish experiencing the deeply romantic and extraordinarily suspenseful love story of Bella and Edward through fresh eyes.
The book’s cover was also released:
“A question that had come up at a lot of signings and other things was about Bella being a damsel in distress. And it’s always bothered me a little bit, because anyone surrounded by superheroes is going to be in a bit of distress,” said Meyer when asked about her motive behind re-writing the story. “And so I thought if I switched it around a little bit to see how a boy does, and you know, it’s about the same.”
This isn’t the first time that Meyer has revisited her original novel. She’s infamously known for having never published Midnight Sun, Twilight told from Edward Cullen’s perspective. Her initial plans were to publish the book, however when someone leaked the book, she released her unfinished draft of the Sun online and placed the book on hold.
Stephenie Meyer first published Twilight on October 5, 2005. Before Meyer landed a publishing deal, the book was in a bidding war between eight different publishers. Little, Brown eventually bought the first three Twilight books for $750,000. It held the #5 spot of the New York Times Best Seller list within a month of its publication. It later reached and held onto the #1 spot for several years. Early reviews of the books were actually very positive, however as the books and movies reached their peak in popularity, public opinion and interest in the series began to wane.
“Even those of you who love Twilight the most (in fact, especially those who love it the most) have probably noticed that there’s been just a teensy little bit of backlash following the success of the books and films,” said Meyer on her website two years ago. The remarks came after comments she made in an interview that she was “over” Twilight. Meyer clarified, “When I speak of Twilight becoming a negative place for me, it is entirely that near-omnipresent Twilight antipathy that I am speaking of.”
Regardless, Meyer seems to be very excited about sharing this new story with her fans. While she suggests that Life and Death won’t kick off a new Twilight series or movie franchise, she hopes that it will find a place in the hearts of newer Twilight readers. “I guess my hope is that maybe the younger readers will be reintroduced because a lot of my readers, you know, they’re all 10 years older now and so there’s a whole new generation.”
You can watch the full interview with Stephenie Meyer at Yahoo! News.
The Twilight Tenth Anniversary Edition is available as a hardcover and eBook today.
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