diff --git a/email2pdf b/email2pdf
index 5a8b136..ef49c85 100755
--- a/email2pdf
+++ b/email2pdf
@@ -8,6 +8,7 @@ from sys import platform as _platform
 from urllib.error import URLError, HTTPError
 from urllib.request import Request, urlopen
 import argparse
+import chardet
 import email
 import functools
 import html
@@ -369,6 +370,14 @@ def handle_html_message_body(input_email, part):
         charset = 'utf-8'
     logger.info("Determined email is HTML with charset " + str(charset))
 
+    try:
+        payload_unicode = str(payload, charset)
+    except UnicodeDecodeError:
+        detection = chardet.detect(payload)
+        charset = detection["encoding"]
+        logger.info("Detected charset can't decode body; trying again with charset " + charset)
+        payload_unicode = str(payload, charset)
+
     def cid_replace(cid_parts_used, matchobj):
         cid = matchobj.group(1)
 
@@ -391,7 +400,7 @@ def handle_html_message_body(input_email, part):
             return "broken"
 
     payload = re.sub(r'cid:([\w_@.-]+)', functools.partial(cid_replace, cid_parts_used),
-                     str(payload, charset))
+                     payload_unicode)
 
     return (payload, cid_parts_used)
 
diff --git a/tests/Subprocess/test_Subprocess_MIME.py b/tests/Subprocess/test_Subprocess_MIME.py
index 210f48e..910b878 100644
--- a/tests/Subprocess/test_Subprocess_MIME.py
+++ b/tests/Subprocess/test_Subprocess_MIME.py
@@ -141,6 +141,18 @@ def test_plainandhtml(self):
         self.assertFalse(self.existsByTimeWarning())
         self.assertFalse(self.existsByTimeOriginal())
 
+    def test_wrong_charset_html(self):
+        self.addHeaders()
+        broken_body = b"<p>Something with raw accents: \xe9</p>"
+        self.attachHTML(broken_body, charset="utf-8")
+        (rc, output, error) = self.invokeAsSubprocess()
+        self.assertEqual(0, rc)
+        self.assertEqual('', error)
+        self.assertTrue(self.existsByTime())
+        self.assertRegex(self.getPDFText(self.getTimedFilename()), "Something\swith\sraw\saccents:\s\é")
+        self.assertFalse(self.existsByTimeWarning())
+        self.assertFalse(self.existsByTimeOriginal())
+
     def test_pdf(self):
         self.addHeaders()
         self.attachText("Some basic textual content")