diff --git a/slicedimage/backends/_http.py b/slicedimage/backends/_http.py
index b4b9106..2e38849 100644
--- a/slicedimage/backends/_http.py
+++ b/slicedimage/backends/_http.py
@@ -3,10 +3,16 @@
 import requests
 from io import BytesIO
 
+from requests.adapters import HTTPAdapter
+from urllib3.util import retry
+
 from slicedimage.urlpath import pathjoin
 from ._base import Backend, verify_checksum
 
 
+RETRY_STATUS_CODES = frozenset({500, 502, 503, 504})
+
+
 class HttpBackend(Backend):
     def __init__(self, baseurl):
         self._baseurl = baseurl
@@ -23,7 +29,14 @@ def __init__(self, url, checksum_sha256):
         self.handle = None
 
     def __enter__(self):
-        resp = requests.get(self.url)
+        session = requests.Session()
+        retry_policy = retry.Retry(
+            connect=10, read=10, status=10, backoff_factor=0.1, status_forcelist=RETRY_STATUS_CODES)
+        adapter = HTTPAdapter(max_retries=retry_policy)
+        session.mount("http://", adapter)
+        session.mount("https://", adapter)
+
+        resp = session.get(self.url)
         resp.raise_for_status()
         self.handle = BytesIO(resp.content)
         verify_checksum(self.handle, self.checksum_sha256)
diff --git a/tests/io_/v0_1_0/test_http_backend.py b/tests/io_/v0_1_0/test_http_backend.py
index 3070d91..f0fb7cd 100644
--- a/tests/io_/v0_1_0/test_http_backend.py
+++ b/tests/io_/v0_1_0/test_http_backend.py
@@ -3,6 +3,7 @@
 import os
 import sys
 import tempfile
+import threading
 import time
 
 import pytest
@@ -10,6 +11,7 @@
 from requests import HTTPError
 
 from slicedimage.backends import ChecksumValidationError, HttpBackend
+from slicedimage.backends import _http
 from tests.utils import (
     ContextualChildProcess,
     TemporaryDirectory,
@@ -121,3 +123,32 @@ def test_error(http_server):
         with pytest.raises(ChecksumValidationError):
             with http_backend.read_contextmanager("tileset.json") as cm:
                 cm.read()
+
+
+def test_retry(monkeypatch, http_server):
+    """
+    Verifies that the retry logic is reasonable.  Since we normally only retry on http connectivity
+    issues, or 50x errors, we monkeypatch the list of HTTP status codes we retry on to {404}, and
+    induce a 404 error.  We also start a thread that creates the file we are looking for.
+
+    Then we attempt to fetch the file.  It should fail a few times, and then successfully return the
+    file.
+    """
+    tempdir, port = http_server
+    http_backend = HttpBackend("http://0.0.0.0:{port}".format(port=port))
+
+    def sleep_and_make_file():
+        time.sleep(5.0)
+        data = os.urandom(1024)
+        with open(os.path.join(tempdir, "tileset.json"), "w") as fh:
+            fh.write(data)
+            fh.flush()
+
+    thread = threading.Thread(target=sleep_and_make_file)
+    thread.setDaemon(True)
+    thread.start()
+
+    with monkeypatch.context() as mc:
+        mc.setattr(_http, "RETRY_STATUS_CODES", frozenset({404}))
+        with http_backend.read_contextmanager("tileset.json") as cm:
+            cm.read()