对于长篇小说翻译来说，译者有时会遇到直译不能充分传递原作全部内涵的情况。因此，翻译补偿在实现原文与译文的功能对等中起着至关重要的作用。注释是译者在翻译过程中广泛运用的一种重要翻译补偿手段。根据对目标读者理解能力的预判，译者们形成了各自的注释使用方式和范例。为了找出英语小说汉译中注释用法的共同点，本研究对30部经典英语小说汉译的注释进行分析，总结出了每种注释的用法，并在此基础上提出小说翻译中注释使用应当遵循的原则，为翻译实践提供借鉴。

In the process of novel translation, translators sometimes have to face with situations where direct translation is inadequate to convey all the meanings. Thus, compensation for translation plays an indispensable role in achieving functional equivalence between the original text and the translation. As an important means of translation compensation, annotations are applied widely by translators with their own ways and formats. In order to find some common ground of annotation usage in the Chinese translations of English novels, this research collects the annotations from 30 classic novel translations and concludes how each type of annotation is used. Based on the results, the principles for applying annotations in novel translation are also proposed to provide implications for translation practice.