《七十二朝人物演義》，一稱《七十二朝四書人物演義》，是明朝末年的一部話本小說。本書是用話本的體裁來描寫《四書》中的人物，這在話本作品中極為少見。 由於《七十二朝人物演義》的作者眾說紛紜，所以本文從序文等的線索開始對成書時間加以討論，再試著對作者問題做進一步的釐清。尤其本書作者牽涉到對當代及後世影響甚大〈功過格〉的提倡者－袁黃（袁了凡），使得本書的作者研究更具價值與意義。

Persons of the Seventy-Two Dynasties is a Ming huaben (話本) fiction collection. This book deserves attention because it is one of the very few works that uses the hua-ben genre in depicting characters in the Four Books (《四書》). Since the authorship of this book has been uncertain and disputes abounds, the author of this paper will attempt to clarify the problem of the authorship. Since one of the possible candidates for the author is Yuan Huang (tzu Liaofan 袁黃，字了凡) of the Ming dynasty, a figure famous for promoting moral checklist (功過格), the importance of the authorship and of this book as a moral exemplum become prominent.