Alphonsus Josephus de Ridder (7 May 1882 – 31 May 1960) was a Belgian writer and poet who wrote under the pseudonym Willem Elsschot (pronounced [ˈʋɪləm ˈɛlsxɔt]).

As a child he would often visit his uncle in rural Blauberg, near Herselt, where they would walk in the Helschot area, from which he would later derive his pen name.

After studying at a state school in Van Maerlantstraat, then the Royal Athenaeum of Antwerp, he attended the Institut Supérieur de Commerce de l'État (nl), later known as the Rijkshandelshogeschool, where he would study economics and business, achieving a masters' degree in commercial sciences in 1904.

Elsschot began writing poetry in 1900, making his authorial debut as a poet (publishing in the magazine Alvoorder).

Whilst living in Rotterdam he wrote Villa des Roses (1913), following the adventures of the guests of a Paris boardinghouse.

[4] While it was ignored by critics and readers alike upon its publication, his most famous works would come in the 1920s and 1930s: Lijmen (1924), Kaas (1933), Tsjip (1934) en Het Been (1938), novels with tragic and comic elements.