Del Rey announces new Star Wars Essential Legends books to be released

2021 marks 50 years of Lucasfilm, and all areas of Lucasfilm are getting some special treatment because of that. That’s including the Star Wars books division of Lucasfilm, and they’ve been honoring their past titles in the Expanded Universe with re-releases this year.

Today, Random House announced that Del Rey will be releasing four new titles from the Expanded Universe vault — i.e., four titles that have been taken out of the Star Wars canon after Disney purchased Lucasfilm, now running under the title of the “Legends” series of books.

Those four books are Dark Force Rising by Timothy Zahn, The Last Command by Timothy Zahn, Darth Bane: The Rule of Two by Drew Karpyshyn, and Rogue Squadron by Michael A. Stackpole. The books will be released in paperback on Sept. 7.

What makes this re-release special is that these books have been hand-selected as the Essential Legends Collection. And as a part of that collection, the books have also received brand new cover art that surely makes them a collector’s item for any of the book-loving Star Wars fans. We have those covers of each of the new titles below.

This is the next round of books that Del Rey has released from the Essential Legends Collection. Just recently, they released three of the first books on June 15: Heir to the Empire by Timothy Zahn, Darth Bane: Path of Destruction by Drew Karpyshyn and Shatterpoint by Matthew Stover.

And the fall 2021 release won’t be the last. In a statement, they revealed that there will also be another release coming in spring 2022. So if you’ve yet to dig into the old Legends stories, or want an excuse to re-read them, now is the perfect time!

For more, keep up with the Star Wars Books category on Dork Side of the Force!