《水浒传》是我国四大古典文学名著之一。它产生于元末，初版于明朝，是我国第一部“供阅读”的白话长篇小说。由于时代的变迁，语言的进化，当年的“白话”，有一部分已经和今天标准的“普通话”有所差异，不是规范的当代汉语了。此外，由于作者所处的时代非常黑暗，民族矛盾突出，统治残暴，作者从民族励志出发,呼唤强悍，鼓励反抗，以小说的形式美化杀人放火，暗示“善杀人者即英雄”，提倡“霸意识”，鼓吹聚众造反，是有他不得已的苦衷的。因此，对于今天的读者而言，必须说明作者当时的环境和写作的动机，才不至于误导今天的读者。这个改编本与原本有两处不同：第一，以规范的当代汉语为标准，把原著中不规范的词语、不合乎当代汉语语法的句子，都经过整理，或加注释，但是并不删节，章节故事都不加以改动。第二，本书从最新的视角出发，以“善恶是非”及对国家、民族、社会是否有益的观点，分析并评价书中的主要人物和故事，用“导读”的形式在全书前面先作总体的介绍，指导读者怎么阅读；在正文中间，对具体人物和具体事件用“夹批” 的形式“画龙点睛”；然后在每一回的正文后面，都加上自述多少不一的 “简评”，指出本回书中的故事人物思想和语言特色，并适当介绍一些前人对《水浒传》的评论，作对比参考。《水浒传》历来被人误解、误导、误读，本书有振聋发聩、拨乱反正、指点迷津、帮助思考的作用。(The Water Margin is one of the four Chinese classical literary masterpieces. It was written in the Later Yuan Dynasty and firstly published in the Ming Dynasty. It is China’s first colloquial novel “For Reading”. Due to the changes of the times and the evolution of language, the “colloquialism” in those days is partially different from the today’s standard “Mandarin” and is no longer the standard contemporary Chinese. In addition, since the author’s era is very dark with serious ethnic conflicts and brutal reign, the author calls for the valiant and encourages resistance from the perspective of national encouragement. He has to beautify murder and burn, imply “Whoever good at killing people are heroes”, promote the “Consciousness of Hegemonism” and advocate rebellion because of his difficulties. Therefore, the environment and writing motivation of the author of the time must be explained for today’s readers, so as to not misleading today’s readers. There are two differences between the adaptation and the original manuscript: Firstly, it collates or annotate the nonstandard words and sentences not conforming to the grammar of the contemporary Chinese according to the standard of normative contemporary Chinese without abridging or changing the chapters and stories. Secondly, from the newest perspective, the this book not only analyzes and evaluates the main characters and stories of the book with the opinion of whether “Good, Evil, Right and Wrong” are beneficial to the country, the nation and the society, but also makes an overall introduction in the front of the book and guides the readers to read the book in the form of “Introduction”; in the middle of the main body, it “Bring out the Crucial Points” for specific characters and specific events with the method of “Interlinear Notes”; then it adds a “Remark” behind the main body of each chapter to point out the characters’ thinking and linguistic features of the story and appropriately introduce some predecessors’ comment on The Water Margin for comparison or reference. The Water Margin is always misunderstood, misled and misread by readers. This book has the function of enlightening the benighted, bringing order out of chaos, pointing out the right and helping people think.)