the devil wears prada

New York: Doubleday, 2003. First Edition [Stated], First Printing [Stated]. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. Nick Dewar (Jacket illustration), and Michelle Oca. [8], 360 pages. Inscribed by the author on the title page. Inscription reads: To Ilana, All the best... Lauren Weisberger. Lauren Weisberger (born March 28, 1977) is an American novelist and author of the 2003 bestseller The Devil Wears Prada, a roman à clef of her experience as an assistant to Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour. Returning the United States after a backpacking expedition, Weisberger settled in Manhattan, where she was hired as assistant to Vogue editor Anna Wintour. After ten months, she and Vogue features editor Richard Story left the magazine. Weisberger said she felt out of place at the magazine, though Vogue managing editor Laurie Jones later said, "She seemed to be a perfectly happy, lovely woman". Weisberger and Story began working for Departures, an American Express publication, where she wrote 100-word reviews and became an assistant editor. She also published a 2004 article in Playboy magazine. After mentioning her interest in writing classes to Story, he referred her to his friend Charles Salzberg. She started writing a story about her time at Vogue, and completed it by trying to write 15 pages every couple of weeks. After repeated urgings, she showed the finished work to agents; it sold within two weeks. The Devil Wears Prada is a semi-fictional but highly critical view of the Manhattan elite, largely based on Weisberger's experience at Vogue magazine. The book focuses on many comical aspects of a first job in the world of elite fashion. A delightfully dishy novel about the all-time most impossible boss in the history of impossible bosses. Andrea Sachs, a small-town girl fresh out of college, lands the job a million girls would die for. Hired as the assistant to Miranda Priestly, the high-profile, fabulously successful editor of Runway magazine, Andrea finds herself in an office that shouts Prada! Armani! Versace! at every turn, a world populated by impossibly thin, heart-wrenchingly stylish women and beautiful men clad in fine-ribbed turtlenecks and tight leather pants that show off their lifelong dedication to the gym. With breathtaking ease, Miranda can turn each and every one of these hip sophisticates into a scared, whimpering child. The Devil Wears Prada gives a rich and hilarious new meaning to complaints about The Boss from Hell. Narrated in Andrea's smart, refreshingly disarming voice, it traces a deep, dark, devilish view of life at the top only hinted at in gossip columns and over Cosmopolitans at the trendiest cocktail parties. From sending the latest, not-yet-in-stores Harry Potter to Miranda's children in Paris by private jet, to locating an unnamed antique store where Miranda had at some point admired a vintage dresser, to serving lattes to Miranda at precisely the piping hot temperature she prefers, Andrea is sorely tested each and every day, and often late into the night with orders barked over the phone. She puts up with it all by keeping her eyes on the prize: a recommendation from Miranda that will get Andrea a top job at any magazine of her choosing. As things escalate from the merely unacceptable to the downright outrageous, however, Andrea begins to realize that the job a million girls would die for may just kill her. And even if she survives, she has to decide whether or not the job is worth the price of her soul.