明代，尤其是明后期，尺牍编创极其兴盛，尺牍评点也应运而起。科举制度的盛行使尺牍评点天然地带有八股文评点的印记，商业出版的繁荣和士人喜好应酬、追求个性自由的风貌又赋予它趣味性和应用性的双重特征。尺牍评点也是雅文化和俗文化趋于合流的产物，在明代中后期呈现出独特的文学景观。 明代尺牍评点的发展分为三个阶段：首开风气——嘉靖（1522-1566）前后、蓬勃发展——隆庆、万历（1567-1620）、转型变异——天启、崇祯（1621-1644），文献数量由少到多再减少，呈橄榄形分布，分布地域主要集中于江浙、福建和安徽。通俗化的尺牍大受欢迎，商业化特征逐渐显露。晚明尺牍评点进一步商业化、多元化，一方面带来了短暂的“乱世雅音”，另一方面也流于俗套，明清之际的尺牍评点走向了转型之路。 明代尺牍评点文献呈现出显著的“系谱”现象，这与其生成方式和形态密切相关。明人选编尺牍主要通过三种方式：从史传文集中摘选，向当世人征集，增删拼凑已有尺牍选本。与此相应，评点方式逐渐从一人独立评点发展为汇集众家评点，评点形态也从注释考订为主发展为评注结合。从尺牍分类和批语中可以发现，明人对尺牍的审美心理经历了“好典崇雅”——“体简用繁”——“尚巧尚奇”——“独抒性灵”的四个阶段。明代尺牍评点在辨体与分类上体现出当时人们不同的文学观念，也为我们提供了丰富的社会文化史料。 尺牍评点文献在明代市井间的传播，包含较多的商业因素。入清以后，明代尺牍评点文献多受官方否定，甚至遭禁毁之厄，流传不广。明代尺牍评点文献还曾流传到日本，且大多经过翻刻。相比于前中期，晚明的尺牍评点接受具有小品化倾向；在广大的下层读者中，实用性的尺牍评点注释仍占主要地位。 本文分为上、下二编。上编属于总体研究。下编是上编的基础，选录34种明代尺牍文献，叙录其版本形态和评点特征，并择要摘录序跋、凡例。附录“明代尺牍评点文献编年目录”，共著录133种明代尺牍评点文献；另有“明代尺牍评点评语辑要”13种。

During the Ming Dynasty, especially after Wanli, the punctuations and annotations of the letters gradually prospered, which was an encounter between tradition and the prosperity of writing letters. The influence of the imperial examination system made it naturally bear some of the marks of the eight-point essay. The commercial publishing and the scholars' preference for entertainment and the pursuit of individuality and freedom endued it both fun and application. It is the vulgarization of elegant culture. The product that coincided with the convergence of the city and the people, presented a unique literary landscape in the middle and late Ming Dynasty. The development of the punctuations and annotations of the letters in the Ming Dynasty is divided into three stages: the first ethos - around Jiajing (1522-1566), flourishing – from Longqing to wanli (1566-1620), transformation - the occasion of the Ming and Qing Dynasties (1621-1644). The number of these documents increased first and then decreased, with an olive-shaped distribution, and the distribution areas are mainly concentrated in Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Fujian and Anhui. In the late Ming Dynasty, the evaluation of the scales was further commercialized and diversified. On the one hand, it brought a short-lived "chaotic sound of the chaos", on the other hand, it also became vulgar, and the punctuations and annotations of the letters on the occasion of the Ming and Qing dynasties went to the path of transformation. In the Ming Dynasty, the anthologies of the punctuations and annotations of the letters showed a significant "pedigree" phenomenon, which was closely related to its formation and morphology. There were three main ways to collect the letters: from the history books or essays, from the literatis at that time, and the additions and deletions of other selected collections. Accordingly, the punctuation and annotation methods gradually developed from one-person independent evaluation to a collection of comments, and the evaluation form evolved from annotations to multiple comment points combined with commentary. From the classification and criticism of the letters, it can be found that the aesthetic psychology of the Ming Dynasty had experienced four stages of “advocating elegance” – “short and more useful” – “preferential and peculiar” – “personality”. The discussions about the style and genre of the letters in the Ming Dynasty reflected different aspects of people's literary concepts, and also provided us with rich historical materials of the Ming Dynasty. The dissemination and acceptance of letters in the lower classes of the Ming Dynasty is more complicated than that of the scholar-officials, including more commercial factors. They were officially denied in the Qing Dynasty, and even banned. In general, they are not widely spread, but there are still many valuable documents that remain stubbornly retained. The anthologies of punctuations and annotations of the letters of the Ming Dynasty has also been circulated to Japan, and most of them had been reprinted. Compared with the pre- and mid-term, the late Ming's acceptance of the punctuations and annotations of the letters has a personal tendency. Among the vast number of lower-level readers, the practical punctuations and annotations of the letters still dominated. There are rich theoretical resources of prose criticism in the punctuations and annotations of the letters of the Ming Dynasty, which is an important part of the research literature of the prose in the Ming Dynasty. This article is divided into two parts. The first part is an overall study; the second part is the summaries, which contains 133 kinds of Ming Dynasty’s documents of the punctuations and annotations of the letters, and records the edition form and commentary characteristics of 34 documents among them. Some of the Prefaces and Postscripts or General Examples are attached as important reference. Based on these, the above views are the main contents of the first part of this article.