 According to the author , her books are " about life , not death " and " love , not lust " . Each book in the series was inspired by and loosely based on a different literary classic : Twilight on Jane Austen 's Pride and Prejudice , New Moon on Shakespeare 's Romeo and Juliet , Eclipse on Emily Brontë 's Wuthering Heights , and Breaking Dawn on a second Shakespeare play , A Midsummer Night 's Dream . Meyer also states that Orson Scott Card and L. M. Montgomery 's Anne of Green Gables series are a big influence on her writing . As for the Cullens , she based them on her own family . 
