It had 268 pages and was published in 2,000 copies. Today some 60 copies of the book are preserved and some of them are kept abroad.
The first Russian book-printer and his assistant Pyotr Mstislavets published two other famous books, the first Slavonic "ABC Book" (1574) and the first complete edition of the Slavonic Bible (1580-1581).
According to experts, all Ivan Fedorov and Pyotr Mstislavets' editions are first-class samples of the 16th century's book-printing art. They have perfect types, many ornaments (miniatures, colophons, capital letters and illustrations), prefaces and epilogues written in a spoken language.
However, it is believed that first books appeared in Russia before Fedorov's "The Apostle" in Veliky Novgorod, not in Moscow. A developed feudal state existed here in the 12th-15th centuries. Several books published in Veliky Novgorod are known to historians. However, they had no imprints so we cannot tell their priority.
