"Afterward" is a short ghost story by American writer Edith Wharton. It was first published in the 1910 edition of The Century Magazine. and later reprinted in her books The Collected Short Stories of Edith Wharton and Tales of Men and Ghosts (1910). It is an ironic ghost story about greed and retribution. The ghost comes for one of the main characters long after a business transgression where the character wronged another.