Del Rey
Del Rey is the science fiction and fantasy imprint Ballantine launched in 1977 under Judy-Lynn and Lester del Rey, starting with The Sword of Shannara; it is now part of Penguin Random House.
- Editions tracked
- 106
- First editions
- 79
- Books
- 104
- Years
- 1981 to 2025
About Del Rey
Del Rey is the science fiction and fantasy imprint launched by Ballantine Books in 1977 under Judy-Lynn del Rey and her husband, the author Lester del Rey, and now part of Penguin Random House.
Judy-Lynn del Rey joined Ballantine in 1973 from Galaxy magazine and hired Lester in 1975 to build a fantasy list. When Ballantine gave her an imprint of her own in 1977, she ran it and its marketing while Lester edited the fantasy authors. The first new novel under the name was Terry Brooks's The Sword of Shannara (1977), chosen by Lester as an epic with appeal to Tolkien readers; Random House issued the hardback and Ballantine a trade paperback at the same time, and it became one of the imprint's early best sellers. Judy-Lynn also secured the novelisation rights to Star Wars, the start of a long run of tie-in publishing. She died in 1986.
Authors associated with the imprint include Terry Brooks, Anne McCaffrey (the Dragonriders of Pern), Philip K. Dick, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, Naomi Novik and Silvia Moreno-Garcia, whose Mexican Gothic appeared in 2020. Del Rey is now an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House, which is owned by Bertelsmann.
How to spot a Del Rey first edition
AuthorsTerry Brooks (10)Naomi Novik (7)David Eddings (6)Pierce Brown (5)Silvia Moreno-Garcia (4)R. A. Salvatore (4)Alan Dean Foster (3)Kevin Hearne (3)James Luceno (3)Anne McCaffrey (3)
SeriesDragonriders of PernTemeraireThe BelgariadFitz and the FoolLegacy of the ForceRed Rising TrilogyThe DemonWars SagaThe Iron Druid Chronicles
Published by Del Rey
- 1st Del Rey1981 Paperback · Xanth 4 Not yet valued Log in to want this
- 1st Del Rey1981 Paperback Not yet valued Log in to want this
- 1st Del Rey1983 Paperback Not yet valued Log in to want this
- 1st Del Rey1985 Paperback Not yet valued Log in to want this
- Del Rey1986 Paperback · Winterlands 1 Not yet valued Log in to want this
- Del Rey1993 Other Not yet valued Log in to want this
- Del Rey1998 Hardback Not yet valued Log in to want this
Frequently asked questions
How do I identify a Del Rey first edition?
How many Del Rey books does MyVolumes track?
We track 106 editions published by Del Rey, 79 of them first editions, across 104 books.
Where these facts come from
- Del Rey Books, Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org)
- Judy-Lynn del Rey, JSTOR Daily (daily.jstor.org)
- The Sword of Shannara, Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org)
- First Edition Identification by Publisher (Allen and Patricia Ahearn), ILAB, 2010 (ilab.org)
Every fact on this page was checked against the sources listed. Checked 17 October 2026.