Afterward

Edith Wharton's short story, "Afterward," was first published in 1910 in The Century Magazine, a literary monthly founded in 1881, and later collected in Tales of Men and Ghosts. A self-aware variation on the haunted-house story, "Afterward" has become one of the best-known works in Wharton's supernatural fiction.A December 1910 review of the collection in The Occult Review referred to the story as a "little masterpiece." The reviewer praised Wharton's "subtlety of characterization" and "delicate intricacy of psychological analysis," while observing that her stories move more quickly than Henry James's.May anyone who shares Catherine Morland's hopes for an old house enjoy this strange and elegant ghost story.