David Burn (c.1799 – 14 June 1875) was a Tasmanian pioneer and dramatist, author of the first Australian drama to be performed on stage, The Bushrangers.
Burn published a pamphlet Vindication of Van Diemen's Land in A Cursory Glance at Her Colonists as They Are, Not as They Have Been Represented To Be (London, 1840).
Burn returned to Van Diemen's Land and published his Plays and Fugitive Pieces in Verse in 1841; the dedication to Lady Franklin is dated November 1842.
Burn accompanied Sir John and Lady Jane Franklin on their expedition to the west coast of Tasmania in 1842 which was described in his Narrative of the Overland Journey … From Hobart Town to Macquarie Harbour, 1842 (published in Sydney 1955 with notes by G. Mackaness).
Burn was editing the South Britain or Tasmanian Literary Journal in 1843, and afterwards went to Sydney and Auckland, where he lived for many years.