Louis Cullen

Louis Michael Cullen (born 1932) is an Irish diplomat, academic, historian, author and Japanologist. He is Professor of Modern Irish History at Trinity College in Dublin.Nicholas Canny has described him as "the most prolific, most wide-ranging, and the most enterprising historian of his generation in Ireland."

Early life

Cullen's family came from New Ross in County Wexford. He took a Master's degree at University College Galway with a thesis on smuggling in 18th century Galway, where he was also the auditor of the History Society in 1953/54. Then he took a doctorate at the London School of Economics.

Career

Cullen was posted to the Irish embassy in Paris as a diplomat, he developed an interest in the former trading links between Ireland and France.

In 1963, he joined the history department at Trinity College as a lecturer. In 1972, he was appointed professor of Irish History; and he became a Senior Fellow. In 1970 he was a co-founder of the Economic and Social History Society of Ireland. A speaker of Japanese, he has also written a history of Japan between 1582 and 1941. His book "An Economic History of Ireland Since 1660" has been reprinted and used widely as a textbook for students of Irish history.

Edward Cullen

Edward Cullen (né Edward Anthony Masen) is a fictional character in Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series. He is featured in the books Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse and Breaking Dawn, and their corresponding film adaptations, and the as yet unfinished novel Midnight Sun—a re-telling of the events of Twilight from Edward's perspective. Edward is a telepathic vampire who, over the course of the series, falls in love with, marries, and has a child with Bella Swan, a human teenager who later chooses to become a vampire as well. In the Twilight film series, Edward is played by actor Robert Pattinson.

Concept and creation

Stephenie Meyer stated that the original concept of Edward originated in a dream that she had, in which an "average girl" and a "fantastically beautiful, sparkly ... vampire ... were having an intense conversation in a meadow in the woods." In this dream, the pair "were discussing the difficulties inherent in the facts that ... they were falling in love with each other while ... the vampire was particularly attracted to the scent of her blood, and was having a difficult time restraining himself from killing her." She chose the name "Edward" because she thought it was "a name that had once been considered romantic, but had fallen out of popularity for decades". The development of the character was influenced by the fictional characters Gilbert Blythe, Fitzwilliam Darcy, and Edward Rochester—particularly the last, who, like Edward Cullen, sees himself as a "monster". A recurring theme in the series, especially in the first three books, is that Edward is constantly trying to avoid accidentally harming Bella, due to his vampire nature.