If a textbook has the same isbn, author, and edition but the publisher is not the same is the book the same?

Question

I was searching for college textbooks online and a majority of the books had the same isbn, title,author,and edition that i was looking for but they had different publishers..so i was wondering if they were still the same books!

Answer 1

I would say yes. The ISBN is a unique identifier, so if 2 books have the same ISBN, they should be the same - unless of course there has been a mistake when assigning the ISBN. Some books have a publisher and a distributor or even 2 publishers, so they could be listed under 2 different publishers.

If you want to be 100% sure, though, double-check with your instructor before buying.

Answer 2

the isbn number should be different for every single different version, even different publishers. so maybe youre just mistaken, or the publishing company has several names. which sounds strange.

but yes, the books would be the same if the author, title, and edition all match.