Edith Wharton (1862-1937) was a Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist and short story writer. She was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1927, 1928 and 1930. Among her most popular and terrifying tales are the many masterly ghost stories which she wrote in her early career.

Afterward is a dramatic story of the most mysterious ghost of all. When Ned and Mary Boyne move to a remote and unrenovated manor house in Dorsetshire, their list of desired features includes a resident ghost. Their friend Alida Stair confirms that there is indeed a ghost, but "you will never know it until long, long afterward."

Ned and Mary keep a look out for the ghost at first, but there is no sign of it. Or is there? As the foundations of their comfortable and prosperous life slowly begin to crumble, the import of a figure they once fleetingly glimpsed on the driveway begins to dawn. And then a strange and very terrible event takes place ...