Legend
Legend was a British science fiction and fantasy imprint of Random House, first publisher of Greg Egan's Quarantine and Ken MacLeod's The Star Fraction, sold to Orbit in 1997.
- Editions tracked
- 41
- First editions
- 7
- Books
- 40
- Years
- 1988 to 1996
About Legend
Legend was a British science fiction and fantasy imprint of the Random House group in the late 1980s and 1990s, notable as the first publisher of Greg Egan's novel Quarantine (1992) and Ken MacLeod's debut The Star Fraction (1995). Random House sold the imprint to Orbit in 1997.
Quarantine, a hard science fiction novel by the Australian writer Greg Egan, appeared under the Legend name in 1992. The Star Fraction first appeared from Legend as a paperback in the United Kingdom and was shortlisted for the Arthur C. Clarke Award in 1996. Other authors listed under the Legend name in genre databases include David Gemmell, Tad Williams and Mercedes Lackey, though those listings should be checked book by book.
Orbit, the buyer, had been founded in 1974 within Macdonald Futura and passed to Little, Brown, then part of Time Warner, in 1992. That business is now Hachette Book Group, so the former Legend list ended up inside Hachette. Collectors should not confuse this British imprint with the unrelated Legend line of Dark Horse Comics, which some databases merge with it.
We have not yet written the guide to Legend's first-edition conventions. Until we do, check each book's own page: we list its points where we know them. Know how Legend marked its firsts? Tell us.
Authors
Published by Legend
Frequently asked questions
How many Legend books does MyVolumes track?
We track 41 editions published by Legend, 7 of them first editions, across 40 books.
Where these facts come from
- Orbit Books, Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org)
- The Star Fraction, Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org)
- Quarantine (Egan novel), Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org)
- Legend, Worlds Without End (worldswithoutend.com)
Every fact on this page was checked against the sources listed. Checked 19 October 2026. Reviewed by Harriet Ellis; read how we check facts.