diff --git a/Pipfile b/Pipfile
index 2bf247a..6eec2da 100644
--- a/Pipfile
+++ b/Pipfile
@@ -1,12 +1,9 @@
 [[source]]
-
 url = "https://pypi.python.org/simple"
 verify_ssl = true
 name = "pypi"
 
-
 [packages]
-
 requests = "*"
 pyquery = "*"
 fake-useragent = "*"
@@ -14,10 +11,9 @@ parse = "*"
 "bs4" = "*"
 "w3lib" = "*"
 pyppeteer = "*"
-
+"rfc3986" = "*"
 
 [dev-packages]
-
 twine = "*"
 requests-file = "*"
 pytest = "*"
@@ -27,7 +23,5 @@ mypy = "*"
 pytest-asyncio = "*"
 psutil = "*"
 
-
 [scripts]
-
 tests = "pytest -v -m ok"
diff --git a/Pipfile.lock b/Pipfile.lock
index cf5abb6..703da15 100644
--- a/Pipfile.lock
+++ b/Pipfile.lock
@@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
 {
     "_meta": {
         "hash": {
-            "sha256": "e43fea1bf779c3be1ffe88493cd840abb13135df99429de6dce896323cb1bbd8"
+            "sha256": "cbd9bf4e0f09bac901c6a04bf80b38da6b0dece2d58aa5e6f1468b3cafbcc44d"
         },
         "pipfile-spec": 6,
         "requires": {},
@@ -134,6 +134,14 @@
             "index": "pypi",
             "version": "==2.18.4"
         },
+        "rfc3986": {
+            "hashes": [
+                "sha256:632b8fcd2ac37f24334316227f909be4f9d0738cbf409404cff6fa5f69a24093",
+                "sha256:8458571c4c57e1cf23593ad860bb601b6a604df6217f829c2bc70dc4b5af941b"
+            ],
+            "index": "pypi",
+            "version": "==1.1.0"
+        },
         "six": {
             "hashes": [
                 "sha256:70e8a77beed4562e7f14fe23a786b54f6296e34344c23bc42f07b15018ff98e9",
diff --git a/requests_html.py b/requests_html.py
index 0807881..ea8f3bd 100644
--- a/requests_html.py
+++ b/requests_html.py
@@ -126,6 +126,12 @@ class BaseParser:
         # Scan meta tags for charset.
         if self._html:
             self._encoding = html_to_unicode(self.default_encoding, self._html)[0]
+            # Fall back to requests' detected encoding if decode fails.
+            try:
+                self.raw_html.decode(self.encoding)
+            except UnicodeDecodeError:
+                self._encoding = self.default_encoding
+
 
         return self._encoding if self._encoding else self.default_encoding