George Lucas and Alan Livingston joined forces to produce a 1977 record album. Roscoe Lee Browne provided the narration for this project while E. Jack Kaplan and Cheryl Gard-Wornson adapted the script into a continuous story format.
The album released on 20th Century Fox Records under catalog number T-550. It included an illustrated 16-page souvenir photo book for listeners who purchased it on vinyl records, compact cassettes, 8-track tapes, and reel-to-reel formats.
Foreign language versions appeared in French, German, Spanish, Mexican Spanish, and Japanese markets. Dominique Paturel narrated the French edition titled L'Historie de La Guerre des étoiles while Taichirō Hirokawa delivered lines in the Japanese adaptation.
Three abridged audio adaptations were created including The Adventures of Luke Skywalker and The Story of Star Wars: Return of the Jedi. Malachi Throne provided narration for the sequel album while Chuck Riley narrated the final installment distributed through Buena Vista Records.