Stephenie Meyer‘s Twilight, the first novel in the Twilight Saga book (and now movie) series, has become the 13th novel to sell more than two million copies in the United Kingdom in the 21st century, according to TheBookseller.com (via The Twilight Lexicon).

According to the report, only three other novelists have achieved the same feat to date: J K Rowling of the Harry Potter books, Dan Brown of The Da Vinci Code and Angels & Demons, and Mark Haddon of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time.

Curiously, Twilight was not a big hit when it was first published in the UK in 2006, selling a mere 1,684 as per Nielsen BookScan data.

Twilight only caught on in summer 2008 following the publication of Breaking Dawn, and, more importantly, a few months before the release of the Catherine Hardwicke-directed movie version starring Robert Pattinson as the lovestruck vampire Edward Cullen and Kristen Stewart as the equally lovestruck human Bella Swan. (Jacob Black, played by Taylor Lautner in the film series, became a major character only in the second installment, New Moon.)

Hardwicke’s Twilight became a sleeper blockbuster, grossing nearly $400m worldwide, and eventually leading to the Twilight-Pattinson-Stewart-Lautner frenzy that shows no sign of abating.

Last week alone, Twilight sold 16,672 copies in the UK, reaching a grand total of 2,005,609 copies sold. Approximately 355,000 copies have been sold in 2010 alone.

Meyer’s books, including the Twilight series novels, The Host, and the Twilight-related The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner, have earned £47.7m (US$74.33m) since early 2006.

Source: Alt Film Guide