Do you know why Del Rey imprint is named Del Rey? It’s an interesting story.
On May 25, 1977 Star Wars was released and altered the cultural landscape forever. It flung the doors and revealed a glittering cosmos, and suddenly science fiction wasn’t just a little genre hiding in a corner. Don’t get me wrong, Star Trek was already a thing, but this wasn’t people in pristine uniforms contemplating the ethics of conversing with alien species. This was space magic and high stakes set in a gritty universe, where smart people shot first. Children learned what an android was, adults imagined themselves as Jedi knights, and the world’s love affair with space opera began. It was a watershed moment.
Few people realize it now, but prior to its release, Star Wars was this odd side project, a B movie, and most people didn’t think it would amount to much. Although the film had its early champions like Spielberg and Alan Ladd, Jr., then-president of 20th Century Fox, the board of the studio dismissed the film. Even Lucas himself thought it would fail. In fact, his wife cried when she saw it, and the two of them went to Hawaii on vacation during the premiere. He learned of the film’s success because Ladd called him and told him to turn on the TV, where Walter Cronkite did a feature on it, complete with footage of massive lines of moviegoers that stretched around the block.
But our story doesn’t start in 1977. It starts a year earlier, when the novelization of Star Wars, credited to Lucas and ghost-written by Alan Dean Foster, landed on the desk of an editor at Ballantine Books. Her name was Judy-Lynn del Rey.
Judy-Lynn del Rey started her career as an editorial assistant at Galaxy, one of the most prominent science fiction magazine of 1960s. She rose through the editorial ranks to the position of the managing editor, and eventually Ballantine Books poached her in 1973. Ballantine Books, in turn, was bought by Random House, and Judy-Lynn found herself in the position of a senior editor.
One of her first decisions was highly controversial. Every publishing imprint values its top earners. Among Ballantine authors, one of such bestselling writer was John Norman. Even in 1970s, Norman was a highly divisive figure. A philosopher professor turned writer, he created a fictional world of barbarians that mostly focused on women being enslaved, abused, and treated like property. It sold but it was also vile. Judy-Lynn cut him loose. His work didn’t align with the direction she saw the imprint going.
Imagine, you’ve become the senior editor, as a result of a new merger, and the first thing you do is let go of your cash cow. The pressure to deliver must’ve been immense.
It’s 1976. By now Judy-Lynn followed that opening act with Star Trek Log series, a 10 novel series that was based on Star Trek: The Animated Series, and it is doing well. Judy-Lynn finds the novelization of Star Wars submitted to her, reads it, and realizes it will be a hit. Not only does she buy it, she makes its own sub-imprint for it. She commissions Ralph McQuarrie, the artist who did the conceptual art for Star Wars, to do the cover. She pushes the book.
It’s February 1977, three months before the premier, and Star Wars the book has sold out its initial 500,000 unit print run. In the next three month, it would continue to sell like hotcakes, moving over 4 million copies before the film ever saw the light of day. So when STAR WARS blasted onto the scene with a triumphant orchestral fanfare, the foundation of its success was already laid out.
Judy-Lynn del Rey went on to spearhead her own imprint, Del Rey Books. She and her husband, Lester del Rey, developed the fantasy line that brought us some of the most foundational works of the last century. Below is the small selection of her accomplishments:
- She relaunched Princess Bride that was struggling so much, it was about to go out of print. The new edition had such a premium feel that the book rebounded. Without her, there would never be a movie.
- She brought us Terry Brooks’s The Sword of Shannara and Stephen R. Donaldson’s The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever.
- She published Asimov’s Foundation Trilogy
- She published the Dragons of Pern. Anne McCaffrey’s The White Dragon became the first science fiction novel ever to hit #1 on the New York Times bestseller list.
- Under her guidance, Del Rey became so successful, that it produced 65 bestsellers between years of 1970-1990, which was more than every other SF/F publisher combined. The dominance of the imprint was so apparent, the competitors referred to their titles as Death Rey Books.
And yet, despite this amazing record, Judy-Lynn wasn’t recognized by her peers for her achievements during her life. The professional side of SF/F can be extremely cliquish and standoffish, and they looked down on her because of her commercial success. She left too soon, dying in 1986 from a sudden brain hemorrhage, and when the community attempted to honor her posthumously with a Hugo, her husband refused to accept it, because it was “too late.”
Here she is, accepting a rare award.
If you would like to know more, you can watch a short documentary of her life here, on PBS. Judy-Lynn del Rey was living with dwarfism, and the documentary features actors with dwarfism for the voice-over roles.
This is amazing. I had no idea! That documentary is going on my “to watch soon” list. Thank you.
Thank you for this – I love hearing about those whose contributions are great, but who are overlooked. I remember in the 80s and 90s seeing Del Rey books at the book store and automatically deeming it worthwhile and hunting down the first book of the series.
Have a great Monday!
+1
Thank you for the reminder! I used to go looking for Del Rey books at the book store, because I knew they would be good.
Del Rey books were foundational for me ❤️ what an amazing lady!
Yes. Appreciated all their books. Always good.
Thank you for this.
Dragon riders of Pern was one of my first and favorite books, and they are the reason I fell in love with science fiction and fantasy in the seventies. It really saddens me that Judy-Lynn’s accomplishments were ignored until it was too late.
+1
Agree with you, loved the Dragon Riders of Pern first! Then continued with all other Pern related books.
+1
I had no idea she was responsible for so many books that shaped my formative years! What a remarkable person!!
same here!
+1!
Ditto!
Very interesting read, thank you!
Wow! Thanks for sharing this. Judy-Lynn del Rey was a total rock star to the fantasy/sci fi space. I had no idea! I have read so many of those books. She should have been recognized during her lifetime. The powers that be missed the boat on that one.
I remember purchasing that Star wars novel….I also read all those books mentioned! Thank you for sharing this history….and now I am realizing that Del Rey was my favorite imprint growing up!
Thank you again.,,
Wow to Judy-Lynn del Rey.
Thank you for letting us know how Del Rey books were founded. My mom had pretty much all the books mentioned in the post. I’ve read some of them in book form back in the day. Some of the copies were read so much that the spines were cracking.
Star Wars was panned from the beginning from movie critics. I remember my parents and older siblings talking about this new sci-fi movie that we should go see on a Saturday night to see if the critics were wrong about it. This was in rural northeast Missouri. I was 5 when I saw it. The only scene my mom wouldn’t let me watch was when Luke’s aunt and uncle’s bodies were discovered after the stormtroopers killed them.
Funny how the “serious” critics almost always pan the “good stuff”. You’d think they were trying to be “relevant” or “important”. Or something.
So… Is this about the Innkeeper deal?
What Innkeeper deal? I’m not sure what you are referring to, and I’m not aware of any Innkeeper deal being in the works.
Just to clarify before rumors start, we are not working with Del Rey in any capacity. Del Rey is part of Penguin Random House. We are being published by Tor Publishing group.
Well played
wow,,, thank you
I had no idea! Thank you for this. The Dragon Riders of Pern was my intro to fantasy.
What everyone else said. I loved learning about this. Frustrated that she didn’t get her due in her lifetime, but I love the husband telling them, “too late.”
Thank you for remembering her. Those of us who read the ‘books’, and became the geeks, are so happy she did what she did. Many of the books you mentioned played such a big part of my life. Such wonderful memories.
Amazong woman.
Thank you for sharing this remarkable woman’s achievements.
Amazing history. Like so many, I remember looking for DelRey books knowing they’d be good.
Will look for the documentary. Appreciate you sharing. 😀
Wow this means so much to me. As a teenager in the early 70’s I would crash the Science- fiction conferences at various universities and back then it was a panel of scientists made up of the campus best at one table and at the table across from them would be the authors of fiction all posturng and postulating about whatever topic they were onto.Asimov, Heinlein, Harrison, dozens of others and Del Rey was coming just out of the gate so to speak, I would sit there for hours following arguments and rationalizations at one table after the other. My idea of a really great time 🙂 And there was no dressing up, role play – we were there to meet authors whose work was blowing our little minds and to hear who got their science right, wrong or crazy. I was west coast and somehow never caught a glimpse of her and that is now a new regret because I had all the makings of a groupie and they ( the del Reys)would have fit my bill.
Judy Lynn-Del Rey was an institution. Truly a national treasure. She’s been a hero of mine for decades.
I remember growing up in the 80s and at times you would buy a book because it was published by Del Ray and almost always happy.
She really shaped SFF in so many ways that are still relevant.
Same, Katy!
I agree. My mom would always ask me “Is it a Del Rey published book?” if it was a book she wanted. If I said no, she said “put it back”. 😂
Thank you for this, really interesting.
Tangentially related – I realize now that I would LOVE a blog post on the the research rabbit holes you fall into, since you seem to do a lot of research for all your fantastic writing projects.
Random factoids are a favorite of mine, seeing what you’ve discovered would be super fun!
I can probably do one. I just don’t know if anyone except you and me would be interested. 🙂
I would love to read some too ❤️
I never knew moddable keyboards were interesting until you wrote a blog about them, so I’d be up for another interesting discovery!
I would love something like this. Probably explains why I fall into so many rabbit holes myself. 😁
Here for it.
You could write about the proper way to brush teeth and it would come out interesting and entertaining. BDH would love it and have a discussion about how it relates to them in the comments section. Everything offered to us is loved and appreciated. Things you find interesting enough to share will fascinate us and make us see glimpses into your thought process, which we will cherish.
+1
+1!
I would as well. I love rabbit holes and random factoids. When you posted the story about the sniper from Finland that inspired a legend or (I think they gave him a scary name) I got chills and went down a rabbit hole myself. I enjoy learning those interesting nuggets!
Also I love that del Rey ditched someone who wrote about women as cattle. We’ve have enough of that in our history. I could hug her for. That alone. Not to mention all the other amazing things!
I’m on! I frequently refer to myself as a fount of useless information.
You made mowing the lawn interesting an funny. I think you could do a fantastic job with this subject.
I would! I love research and rabbit holes! And I love anything you post.
Thank you so much for this history. I read ALL those books, and probably have a bunch of del ray books in my storage.
I’ve been reading titles from Del Rey Books my whole life without knowing anything about this amazing woman. Thank you for this!
I’ve read her fascinating history before. WHAT A WOMAN. Just incredible what she nurtured. Beautiful too.
Thank you for the history lesson. I really enjoyed it.
Ah yes, the Gor novels by John Norman. I first saw them browsing my local mega bookstore (Powells, Portland Oregon) and was horrified after looking them over and reading the back of a couple. I was always browsing books then to see what was good and I’d never heard of him before. This was long before we could look up reviews online and I didn’t yet know about Locus magazine in the mid 80s.
I’ll never forget Del Rey Discoveries and wish it had continued and more of those first time authors they selected for it wrote other books.
Thank you for this great remembrance.
I actually bought and read a few of the Gor novels and in one sense enjoyed them for the world building yet was disgusted by the way women were treated and the sex slave culture and that your worth was based on how well you satisfied the man who owned you.
I first encountered the Gor books around the age of 14, picked up cheap second hand for me by a well-meaning relative because the covers looked like fantasy. Figuring out, at that age, how to explain why they made my skin crawl, took some doing. I respect Mrs Del Rey as much for cutting that author loose, as for finding so many others I liked so much better.
+1
This reminds me of DC Fontana (Dorothy Catherine) who was a script writer and story editor on the original Star Trek series. Dorothy used her initials DC to hide the fact she was a female and her work would be dismissed by folks in the film industry which is highly misogynistic.
It wasn’t any better in book publishing. There were reasons Alice Mary North wrote as Andre Norton and Catherine Moore as C. L. Moore, among others.
I read all of Andre Norton in school and found out that she was a librarian and used Andre Norton as her pen name because no one would take her seriously as a sci fi writer in the day. She was a Legend, one of the greats.
I read the Star Wars book long before I even knew there was a movie coming. Still have my original paperback copy. Thanks for this, it was very interesting!
Ms. Del Rey, a true visionary when it came to science fiction/ fantasy.
I never understood why the movie critics gave Star Wars a thumb down. I went with my now husband to view its opening at our local theater.
We both thought it was great at the time.
Because they were mostly white males too oblivious to their own biases who were trying so hard to look important, intelligent, and relevant they couldn’t see to remove their cranio-rectal impaction?
See, I remember those days.
There has always been a bias against fantasy and science fiction writing as if it can never be as good as “the great American novel ala The Great Gatsby”. People also look down on comic books and manga and laughed and dismissed them being made into movies or TV series that only uneducated or illiterate people would read and or watch that genre.
Notice how science fiction movies always won Oscars for Special Effects and the music score but not for anything else.
There was good reason for Siskel and Ebert to be a popular pair of movie critics. Siskel actually enjoyed comedies and Ebert had no difficulty with being an unabashed fanboy. My then-husband and I always checked to find out what Siskel and Ebert had to say about a movie, and if they disagreed, we went with Ebert.
Thank you for sharing- I will have to watch the documentary. So many Del Rey books for me!
very cool! TYVM for sharing
I read Anne Mcaffrey’s Dragonrider series as they were published. You named others that I read and treasured. Knew the Del Ray name because of the name, but NEVER heard about the founder.
What an amazing woman, overcoming not only the roadblocks being a woman in a man’s world but dwarfism as well.
Thank you for telling us about her!
What is funny is if they ever made a movie or series about The Dragon Riders of Pern someone would scream that they plagiarized if from George R. R. Martin.
This is absolutely true.
She and Lester got together back in the early 1960’s. Lester Del Rey always said that Judy Lynn would be the only woman for him. She was an amazing women.
Thank you for sharing the story of an amazing woman who I knew nothing about until now. I loved many of the books mentioned.
Thank you so much for this.
A new Del Rey release was always worth checking out. She had an uncanny sixth sense for what would sell, and the track record to make it stick, and the guts to say “no more of your 🐂💩”. She made space for SF and fantasy to stop being a “genre for teenaged boys”.
Really not crying,😭😭😭😭😭.
Thank you for sharing this. She will not know it, but this woman shaped my life. With the exception of Princess Bride, all of these books are my bookshelves. Mostly in hardback. My DH and I will be watching the PBS show tonight. With handkerchiefs nearby.
Thank you for this story
Thanks for this , as a great fan of Anne McCaffrey’s Dragon books from the start ,never knew about this marvellously insightful woman.
Thank you for lifting up Judy-Lynn and her work to bring Sci-fi and fantasy to the world.
I was a Del Ray reader. And I’m old enough to remember my high school English teacher recommending both the book and movie Star Wars.
She was a big, but unknown to me, influence on my reading tastes.
Excellent article. Although I didn’t read the Star Wars books, I read a LOT of the other ones she published. I loved The White Dragon, Ruth was the best.
The absolute best!!
…. the titles mentioned read like a list of the main influential books I grew up with….. truly an unsung hero
is there a biography of her life -can’t seem to find one?
I knew about this. Hanging around serious fans will accomplish that. In fact, I cheered when I heard her husband refused to accept the posthumous Hugo. She should have had one at least a decade earlier.
Totally awesome! Thank you!
Wow I had no idea! Thank you for a fascinating post. Seems like I’ve always known the Del Rey name, since I’m a confirmed sci-fi/ fantasy reader, but nothing else about the publishing house.
Thank you for educating us. When I graduated from a combination of Hans Christian Anderson/Grimms and Mills and Boons romances, the White Dragon was one of the first series fantasies that I read. I have replaced Sword of Shannara twice. I still have 3 Star Trek novels.
Thank you Ms. Del Rey.
Oh my! I did not even realize who I owed on being introduced to so many favorite authors whose ideas and concepts I enjoyed.
I certainly read some of the authors mentioned above, but the Del Rey authors that remain on my shelves are Elizabeth Moon, Barry Hughart, Catherine Wells, and Patricia A. McKillip.
My family lived in the Washington DC suburbs from the time my dad left active Navy duty in 1961 until he retired 30 years later. I was graduating high school in May 1977. The Washington Post’s review of Star Wars was almost entirely a rave, possibly because reviewer Gary Arnold had also loved American Graffiti. He called it “a new classic in a rousing movie tradition: a space swashbuckler” and noted the various genre sources, inside jokes, and what we now call Easter eggs. Needless to say, we saw it at the first opportunity.
Thanks for bringing Ms. Del Rey’s story to our attention. Her efforts deserve much more recognition than they’ve had.
cooool
I knew nothing about publishing back then, but I read a LOT of those books. Props to her for being awesome. I’m sorry she had such a short ride on this planet. Really appreciate you posting this.
Fascinating. I knew of her, of course, but I didn’t know any of those things about her. Love that her husband told them to take their award and, well, to take it.
thank you for posting this. I don’t think I ever noticed the del ray publishing house when I read the physical books in the 80s and 90s, but I tended to read fantasy fiction more then sci-fi. Wondering if it was a different name in the UK for those books. great learning the history.
I don’t know if you ran across this, but back in 1999, Del Rey started up an online genre writing workshop known as the DROWW, which offered the chance for structured community feedback and a publishing opportunity with Del Rey (it then became independent as the Online Writing Workshop and is still running today on a pay model). I remember the DROWW and its email list community very fondly and both versions of the workshop helped start the careers of a really impressive number of SFF authors (it still feels wild that I got to see the beginnings of what became published books when they were first workshopped there 25 years ago), so yay for Del Rey!
In an incredible coincidence, I just read a post on this very topic on Tumblr, using the same photo and many of the same examples! Do you also publish blog posts there?
No, but the PBS Renegades is getting widely relinked right now, which is how I found out who she was. There aren’t many pictures of her, unfortunately.
What an amazing woman – thank you for sharing her legacy story.
I’ve never heard of her and yet she’s the one who brought me some of the novels that made me fall in love with science fiction and fantasy in the first place. What a wonderful woman. Thank you for featuring her
I have few heroes. Comes from being old and understanding that everyone is human, and most of us are doing our best. But she and Lucille Ball are mine. Why Lucille Ball? Little TV series called Star Trek…you may have heard of it…
Thank you for this
Thank you very much for this bio. I didn’t know my favorite books had a particular person’s imprint and direction! I remember my first Pern adventure vividly and how I wanted my very own dragon. I would love to see Del Rey books in the bookstore and now I know why.
Thank you for sharing this! The success of Star Wars makes much more sense now. It is the reason I love Sci-fi! I remember finding the Star Wars book in my parents library and loving it. It made me enjoy the movie more and I wished my parents had more books like that. They had Lord of the Rings and I read it … In 5th grade. Didn’t quite absorb that one 😀 (Didn’t re-read LotR till after college.) Also, I recognize every book Judy-Lynn made possible! Good for her, cutting loose the diseased cash cow. The world doesn’t need books like his.
Thank you for bringing her story to us. I wish she were alive today to receive all her deserved accolades. Imagine how wonderful it would be to have a chat with her.
Thank you for sharing this. I had no idea. What a remarkable woman!
I loved Del Rey books. They were always the newest ideas and writers. I knew if Del Rey published it, I would probably like it. She was amazing.
I remember seeing Star Wars in 1977 in a little cheap seats theatre in New Castle, PA. No one had heard of it….but it was our inexpensive Saturday “thing” to do. That first scene when the battle cruiser comes over your head….magic!!!
It absolutely floored us. We couldn’t wait to tell everyone we knew about it.
Watch the short (12-minute) documentary of her life!
I have countless Del Rey books in my collection. How did I know about Lester, but not Judy-Lynn?! “If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine” seems to fit her well.
Thank you for this! What a wonderful woman! I was born in the early 50’s and for a long time was the only girl I knew who avidly read all types of what was then science fiction. The genre is now so large we separate it into different aspects such as Fantasy etc. I read as much as I could get my hands on and as am only child these books were my thoughtful companions. If only I had known this story then. Even now people ignore the whole range of this genre and judge each other for their selections without discussing why.
Judy-Lynn Del Ray was clearly a remarkably abel, string and thoughtful woman whose work impacted many of us; leaving our lives better.
Anne McCaffrey – gifted writer. You share her gift of making your characters REAL – people you actually want to sit down and share a meal with, then join them on their next adventure – and believe you have the capacity to keep up with them? A huge thank you to Judy-Lynn Del Rey; I knew of the Del Rey books but never knew her story. Thanks so much for sharing! May her memory be for a blessing
great story. thank you
Actually PBS has a short documentary on Judy-Lynn Del Rey that’s available on YouTube that is pretty good! She’s so fascinating and I LOVE her taste!
https://youtu.be/bO9oSyR-5UM?si=0pq5iLzXTKpKDEhY
Actually, I always wished they’d do a movie about her – kinda tragic in the end, but probably a good bio-pic!
Thank you for that! Unfortunately since I am not in the US, cannot watch PBS!
Quick correction, it was Alan Ladd, Jr. who was the champion of Star Wars and president at Fox. His father, Alan Ladd, was a famous actor and sadly, died before Star Wars was released.
I’m sorry to be *that* person who submits a correction. Thank you for sharing Judy Del Rey’s story. I did not know her history and I am glad to know now!
Thank you!
Especially during this tragic time, mourning the deaths of Rob and Michelle Reiner, this was a needed reminder that “it’s inconceivable” to imagine a world without Princess Bride, Pern and Star Wars. I spent some time in fandom in the 80s and 90s and the misogyny was real. And continues. Judy’s bravery is a light in dark times. Thank you for this.
+1
This was amazing. Thank you so much. I also read the Philip K Dick interview where he raved about Judy’s editorial skills; that interview was also amazing.
I am so glad to know this and so sorry I’ve never heard it before. She made several of my all time favorite reads possible. Thank you so very much!
I grew up reading Del Rey books. I was all over everything Star Trek I could get my hands on in the 1970s.
I have been reading books in the Del Rey imprint since its inception. I knew of Lester Del Rey, but not Judy-Lynn Del Rey. I am grateful that she “cut John Norman loose.” I’m grateful that her story is being shared. I am, sadly, not surprised that she wasn’t recognized while alive. Thanks for sharing.
WOW loved knowing about Sci-Fi and Fantasy publishing history and origins!
Amazing woman she was Judy-Lynn del Rey ! Thank you!
Thank you
Thank you so much for posting this. I knew bits of the story but not laid out like this.
Thanks for this Ilona, no idea about Del Ray or her fabulous publishing career. I don’t know if it was the same publisher here in Europe, but for Thomas Covenant alone, she would have my deep thanks!
I had no idea such an amazing lady was at the helm of the house that printed pretty much all of the books I read starting in elementary school and after college. Wow!
I’d run across an overview of Del Rey’s history earlier this year and wished I’d known all of this sooner. Your post sent me searching my book shelves for Del Rey titles. These oldies but goodies are still happily collecting dust: Piers Anthony’s “A Spell for Chameleon,” all of David Eddings’s Belgariad series, Larry Niven’s Ringworld series, and a couple Douglas Adams titles. Ms. Del Rey was a juggernaut.
And it’s time for me to blow the dust off and settle in for some rereading.
I have owned quite a few of her books. Thank you for this post.
And this is why we love you. When else would we have found this out? Thanks for sharing what you know. PBS Documentaries ftw!
Thank you. Growing up I read so many Del Rey books. It’s so cool to know some of the background story.
Just read a FB post that pretty much plagrizes this post word for word. Said it was published 3days ago, under Story-1
It’s not plagiarizing. We are all using the PBS article as a base and because it lists certain biographical facts, we have to list them. There are only so many ways to say “She started as an editorial assistant and then became managing editor.” 🙂 I went through the trouble of verifying a lot of the stuff above through various sources, and yet the basic structure is the same – Galaxy, Ballantine, Star Wars, Del Rey imprint.
But you will see a lot more of this. AI is scraping the web and producing reworded summaries. You can usually tell when something is AI written because it will go the same point over and over and be overly dramatic. A lot of the AI versions of the PBS article start with pointing out her height for maximum engagement when it was literally the least notable thing about this incredible woman.
Thank you for the short biography of Judy Del-Ray.
I really appreciated it !
This is off topic, but is House Andrews concerned about amazon pushing out their update to have ai scrub all books available for ebook? They say it is for the purpose of summaries and giving readers that option to chat about the book with ai but I have my doubts. Also if I wanna talk about the books I read I’m not going to be doing it with an ai personally. Anyways, I just wanted to ask what House Andrews thinks about that and how they might respond.
What a great post! I was a teen back in the 1970’s, reading many Del Ray books but I had no idea about Judy-Lynn since publishers and authors were not widely publicized outside of literary circles back then.
I dragged my parents to the local opening night of Star Wars at our movie house in Key West, FL after seeing coverage of it on the Today show. There was a line around the corner and the show was completely sold out, which totally shocked the management as most people still hadn’t really heard of it.
Exquisite, thank you.
What a pioneer 🩷
Del Rey books were my first big fantasy novel forays into reading aside from Tolkien and HP Lovecraft and Co .
Like so many other women in the 1970’s and 80’s that changed the culture in ways we accept as everyday life, I am glad more people are recognizing how absolutely groundbreaking and outstanding the Del Rey line really was.
I will never forget seeing a copy of The Sword of Shannara by Terry Brooks in the bookstore when it first came out and knew that my long dry spell of quality fantasy was over just from the cover. I was 11 years old and I actively sought out the Del Ray line every time I went for a book.
Thank you for sharing and letting the BDH know about this truly gifted and amazing woman.
Thank you for bringing her to our attention, she’s made so many nerdy hearts happy.
This is such a wonderful highlight of someone who has had a huge impact on my life (and others!) and I had not idea
Thank you
This is an amazing story. Thank you! for telling it. Of course I had heard of Del Rey but only recall Lester Del Rey’s name. I am saddened but not surprised that this is the first I heard of Judy.
Dragonriders was my first exposure to fantasy in 9th grade and I read all six Thomas Covenant books in 12th grade. I remember sitting in the car in our driveway, finishing the sixth book and crying because it was ending. I was a fantasy fan forever after that.
Thank you so much for highlighting such an amazing woman. I find it so unbecoming of a professinal setting to sniff down on commercial success. Like in this context you get looked down on because you got people to buy the books in such amounts. Well – cudos to her husband for refusing a industry acolade after she was gone.
Happy Holidays and many books and games to House Andrews, Mod R and the whole BDH!!
Del Rey books were legendary, thank you for providing their creator’s history.
I don’t know why, 40 years later, the universal zeitgeist has recognized Judy-Lynn Del Rey as perhaps the most influential publisher of all time. I read an article in Quora about her today and realized she was responsible for getting me into Science Fiction when I was a child. I then saw the PBS Renegades piece, “Judy-Lynn Del Rey: Galaxy Girl” and started bawling my eyes out when I realized how much she had shaped my life and career. Because of her and the others who followed, science fiction and fantasy are the preeminent stories of the modern age and will continue to shape our world as we move forward.
Wow!
Thank you for publishing this.
Big hugs
Danny
Remarkable Little Person. Thank you for making me aware of her. I have always loved SF. So glad she persisted.
I love reading stuff like this on the blog. This brings me back to when I was a recent immigrant, dragon riders of Pern got me interested in reading and learning English. I’ve loved sci-fi ever since. my youngest daughter next year will be doing a project at school to portray a notable female from history and I’m going to share this with her in hopes she picks Judy as her project. incidentally both my daughters are the age when I fell in love with Anne McCaffrey’s work. so I will not so subtly share the series with them now. Thank you all the after Christmas sales. and thank you for reminded me and a lovely walk down memory lane.
Very cool – I never knew the backstory of how Del Rey books got their imprint name.
I remember reading about “The Star Wars” as a coming next summer article in the monthly Scholastic books newsletter that got passed out to school kids. I wish I still had that article. I totally dismissed it and only found it years later when cleaning out my closet. Heh.
By the time I saw the movie and became a fan in July, the book was already into its 3rd or 5th reprint. Crazy! I am glad Judy-Lynn’s story is being told. A lot of my special reads in high school were Del Rey books – thanks for the hours of happy reading!
Wow.
This was beautiful. Thank you.
This is so meaningful. Thank you for sharing! I will definitely watch the documentary.