John Lapraik 1727 - 1807

John Lapraik was an amateur poet who lived near Muirkirk, Ayrshire in the south west of Scotland during the 18th Century.

He was a friend of Robert Burns, Scotland's most famous poet.

Robert Burns wrote a total of three "Epistles" to John Lapraik ( "an old Scottish bard") which are well known, having been published by Burns.

John Lapraik had a long and eventful life, starting as a relatively wealthy farmer and then losing his money in a Bank crash and enduring a spell in a debtor's prison.

He attempted to emulate Burns by publishing a book of his poems - two years after Burns' first edition of poetry had been published to great acclaim.

John Lapraik's book of poems are interesting for their content - casting light on what it was like to live in Ayrshire in the 18th Century - but his venture into publishing never enjoyed any commercial success.

This site also includes extracts from the published work of James Maxwell (a contemporary of both Burns and Lapraik) who did not approve of them or the values they represented.

Maxwell describes (with some delight); the fate of Lapraik's books in the following terms:

For some devoted theirs unto the flame;
Bumfodder also others made of them.
Some turn’d to dung, and others they were burn’d,
And so to dirt and ashes all were turn’d.

In fact, a very small number of copies of John Lapraik's book "Poems on Several Occasions" have survived.

The aim of this site is to make John Lapraik's poems and songs more widely available - and also to give an insight into what it was like to live around Muirkirk in Ayrshire, Scotland in the late 18th Century.