In 1816, an associate of Lord Byron named John Polidori wrote “The Vampyre” (published in 1819), possibly inspired by Byron himself. Byron, for those of you who chose an economically viable major in college, was a dark, brooding romantic bad boy who appealed to women in the same way that Edward does, the male lead in   “Twilight,” played by Robert Pattinson.

“Edward is a very romantic, smoldering figure,” explained Carrol Fry, professor emeritus at Northwest Missouri State University and author of “Cinema of the Occult: New Age Satanism, Wicca and Spiritualism in Film.” “He’s like Byron, or, say, James Dean.”

Young women and tween girls, Fry argued, love the image of a damaged, morally questionable young man who nevertheless can serve as her protector while she reforms him. What better way to invest a character with such qualities than to make him a protective vampire, bad by nature, but good by inclination?

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