afterword
{{Short description|Literary device at end of book}}
{{merge to|Foreword|discuss=Talk:Foreword#Merge proposal|date=May 2025}}
{{redirect|Afterwords||Afterword (disambiguation)}}
{{distinguish|Afterward|After Words}}
An afterword is a literary device that is often found at the end of a piece of literature.[http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/afterword "afterword"]. Dictionary.com, LLC. Retrieved 10 August 2012. It generally covers the story of how the book came into being, or of how the idea for the book was developed.
An afterword may be written by someone other than the author of the book to provide enriching comment, such as discussing the work's historical or cultural context (especially if the work is being reissued many years after its original publication).{{cite web| last = Pope| first = Geoff| title = "Foreword" Versus "Forward"| work = Grammar Girl's Quick and Dirty Tips| publisher = MacMillan Holdings, LLC| date = 18 November 2010| url = http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/forward-versus-foreword.aspx| access-date = 10 August 2012| archive-date = 6 January 2019| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20190106231335/https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/grammar-girl| url-status = dead}}