diff --git a/Readme.md b/Readme.md
index 23f39fa..e739b67 100644
--- a/Readme.md
+++ b/Readme.md
@@ -120,6 +120,11 @@ See the examples directory for a complete CSS theme for these classes.
 
 ## Properties
 
+#### escape_html
+(default: true)
+
+By default, HTML's reserved characters `& < > " '` are replaced with <a href="https://www.w3schools.com/html/html_entities.asp">HTML entities</a> to make them appear as literal characters in your application, rather than being interpreted as HTML structure. If you prefer keeping HTML's reserved characters untouched, you can set this to false.
+
 #### use_classes
 (default: false)
 
diff --git a/ansi_up.ts b/ansi_up.ts
index f2aaf8d..f2abf8b 100644
--- a/ansi_up.ts
+++ b/ansi_up.ts
@@ -76,6 +76,7 @@ class AnsiUp
     private _osc_regex:RegExp;
 
     private _url_whitelist:{};
+    private _escape_html:boolean;
 
     private _buffer:string;
 
@@ -93,6 +94,7 @@ class AnsiUp
         this._buffer = '';
 
         this._url_whitelist = { 'http':1, 'https':1 };
+        this._escape_html = true;
     }
 
     set use_classes(arg:boolean)
@@ -115,6 +117,16 @@ class AnsiUp
         return this._url_whitelist;
     }
 
+    set escape_html(arg:boolean)
+    {
+        this._escape_html = arg;
+    }
+
+    get escape_html():boolean
+    {
+        return this._escape_html;
+    }
+
 
     private setup_palettes():void
     {
@@ -176,6 +188,8 @@ class AnsiUp
 
     private escape_txt_for_html(txt:string):string
     {
+      if (!this._escape_html)
+          return txt;
       return txt.replace(/[&<>"']/gm, (str) => {
         if (str === "&")  return "&amp;";
         if (str === "<")  return "&lt;";