Youth and the Bright Medusa is a collection of short stories by Willa Cather, published in 1920.

[1] Several were published in an earlier collection, The Troll Garden.

[3] She was unhappy with her publisher Houghton Mifflin and had been interested in Knopf since seeing their edition of Green Mansions by William Henry Hudson.

[3] Cather liked the looks of their books and how they supported their authors with well-designed advertisements.

[3] Cather was still under contract with Houghton Mifflin for her novels so Knopf offered to put out a selection of her short stories.