Chaining doesn't always work as expected.

[dialtone]

$("<div>ciao</div>").after($("<span>bello</span>")).appendTo("body");

Only appends the div without any trace of span.

$("<div>div</div>").attr("id","test").appendTo("body"); $("#test").after($("<span>span</span>"));

This works but it's not really a good solution because it requires me to add a new id attribute.

[aercolino]

This works as expected:

$( "<div>ciao</div>" ).appendTo( "body" ).after( "<span>bello</span>" );

[john]

aercolino is correct - you can't insert an element before an element that isn't actually in the document yet. His solution will suit you just fine.