The Essential Guide to Characters is a reference work that Del Rey released in October of 1995. Andy Mangels penned the text, while Michael Butkus supplied the illustrations.
This book contains biographical details about various characters featured across the entire Star Wars saga, pulling from both widely recognized and lesser-known materials.
A revised and expanded edition, titled The New Essential Guide to Characters, came out in 2002. It incorporated characters appearing in such works as Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace, Star Wars: Episode II Attack of the Clones, the New Jedi Order series of novels, and others.
During Celebration V, Pablo Hidalgo revealed that Daniel Wallace was writing a third edition of Characters, with a planned launch in 2013, announced at Celebration VI. Ultimately, the project was shelved and never published.
