Elpidifor Vasilyevich Barsov was a Russian Empire literary historian, ethnographer, folklorist, archeologist and philologist, specializing in the ancient Russian written language. Barsov, a member of the Saint Petersburg Imperial Academy of Sciences (1873), and Moscow Imperial Archeological society (1874) was the owner of the country's largest palaeographic collection, as well as numerous priceless documents concerning the history of Raskol in Russia and the Old Believers' literature. Barsov published several acclaimed books, including Peter the Great in the Legends of the Northern Krai (1872), The Old Russian Tsars and Princes in the Northern Krai Legends (1877) and The Northern Krai Lamentations (1872-1885), the latter introducing the readership to the previously unknown genre of the regional Russian folklore.
Els, Baroness Witte is a Belgian historian. She was professor at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel and honorary rector of the university. Els Witte was the first female rector of a Belgian university. She was a member of the Coudenberg group, a Belgian federalist think tank.
Elsa Barker (1869–1954) was an American novelist, short-story writer and poet. She became best known for Letters from a Living Dead Man (1914), War Letters from the Living Dead Man (1915), and Last Letters From the Living Dead Man (1919), books containing what she said were messages from a dead man produced through automatic writing.
Elsa Beskow was a famous Swedish author and illustrator of children's books. Among her better known books are Tale of the Little Little Old Woman and Aunt Green, Aunt Brown and Aunt Lavender.
Elsa Andrea Elisabeth Björkman-Goldschmidt (1888–1982) was a Swedish artist and writer who was active in Sweden and Austria. After attending Stockholm's Art Academy, she worked as an engraver and etcher. In 1916, while assisting the Red Cross in Russia, she met her future husband, the Austrian surgeon Waldemar Goldschmidt. They married in Vienna where she was involved with Save the Children and started working as a correspondent for the Swedish press. In 1938, anti-Semitism forced the couple to move to Sweden where she published a number of books about her life in Vienna.
Elsa Bornemann was an Argentine children's writer who was a doctor of the Arts, polyglot and composer. Her books have been translated into many languages, including Braille.
Elsa Cross, is a contemporary Spanish-language Mexican writer perhaps best known for her poetry. She has also published translations, philosophical essays and is known as an authority on Indian philosophy.