diff --git a/docs/topics/email.rst b/docs/topics/email.rst
index 789fbd4fb75cd118454bdf1482e3c19b0464b112..96487d865d8560129be4bd91a10a9b0b74146162 100644
--- a/docs/topics/email.rst
+++ b/docs/topics/email.rst
@@ -76,7 +76,7 @@ uses `Twisted non-blocking IO`_, like the rest of the framework.
         :param settings: the e-mail recipients
         :type settings: :class:`scrapy.settings.Settings` object
 
-    .. method:: send(to, subject, body, cc=None, attachs=(), mimetype='text/plain')
+    .. method:: send(to, subject, body, cc=None, attachs=(), mimetype='text/plain', charset=None)
 
         Send email to the given recipients.
 
@@ -102,6 +102,9 @@ uses `Twisted non-blocking IO`_, like the rest of the framework.
         :param mimetype: the MIME type of the e-mail
         :type mimetype: str
 
+        :param charset: the character encoding to use for the e-mail contents
+        :type charset: str
+
 
 .. _topics-email-settings:
 
diff --git a/scrapy/mail.py b/scrapy/mail.py
index ad8ecbe133c03b96e683556fe14f36ee5cdb8088..c6339f25b3fa9dcb0464a14634a43be0b41a1091 100644
--- a/scrapy/mail.py
+++ b/scrapy/mail.py
@@ -43,7 +43,7 @@ class MailSender(object):
             settings['MAIL_PASS'], settings.getint('MAIL_PORT'),
             settings.getbool('MAIL_TLS'), settings.getbool('MAIL_SSL'))
 
-    def send(self, to, subject, body, cc=None, attachs=(), mimetype='text/plain', _callback=None):
+    def send(self, to, subject, body, cc=None, attachs=(), mimetype='text/plain', charset=None, _callback=None):
         if attachs:
             msg = MIMEMultipart()
         else:
@@ -57,8 +57,11 @@ class MailSender(object):
             rcpts.extend(cc)
             msg['Cc'] = COMMASPACE.join(cc)
 
+        if charset:
+            msg.set_charset(charset)
+
         if attachs:
-            msg.attach(MIMEText(body))
+            msg.attach(MIMEText(body, 'plain', charset or 'us-ascii'))
             for attach_name, mimetype, f in attachs:
                 part = MIMEBase(*mimetype.split('/'))
                 part.set_payload(f.read())
diff --git a/tests/test_mail.py b/tests/test_mail.py
index 25dd35099d3ca10e5f63d7a0b180e75302f5c78d..bd7e4962195242e1bf7843e67c4dacef44d541d1 100644
--- a/tests/test_mail.py
+++ b/tests/test_mail.py
@@ -1,5 +1,8 @@
+# coding=utf-8
+
 import unittest
 from io import BytesIO
+from email.charset import Charset
 
 from scrapy.mail import MailSender
 
@@ -54,11 +57,58 @@ class MailSenderTest(unittest.TestCase):
 
         text, attach = payload
         self.assertEqual(text.get_payload(decode=True), b'body')
+        self.assertEqual(text.get_charset(), Charset('us-ascii'))
         self.assertEqual(attach.get_payload(decode=True), b'content')
 
     def _catch_mail_sent(self, **kwargs):
         self.catched_msg = dict(**kwargs)
 
+    def test_send_utf8(self):
+        subject = u'sübjèçt'
+        body = u'bödÿ-àéïöñß'
+        mailsender = MailSender(debug=True)
+        mailsender.send(to=['test@scrapy.org'], subject=subject, body=body,
+                        charset='utf-8', _callback=self._catch_mail_sent)
+
+        assert self.catched_msg
+        self.assertEqual(self.catched_msg['subject'], subject)
+        self.assertEqual(self.catched_msg['body'], body)
+
+        msg = self.catched_msg['msg']
+        self.assertEqual(msg['subject'], subject)
+        self.assertEqual(msg.get_payload(), body)
+        self.assertEqual(msg.get_charset(), Charset('utf-8'))
+        self.assertEqual(msg.get('Content-Type'), 'text/plain; charset="utf-8"')
+
+    def test_send_attach_utf8(self):
+        subject = u'sübjèçt'
+        body = u'bödÿ-àéïöñß'
+        attach = BytesIO()
+        attach.write(body.encode('utf-8'))
+        attach.seek(0)
+        attachs = [('attachment', 'text/plain', attach)]
+
+        mailsender = MailSender(debug=True)
+        mailsender.send(to=['test@scrapy.org'], subject=subject, body=body,
+                        attachs=attachs, charset='utf-8', _callback=self._catch_mail_sent)
+
+        assert self.catched_msg
+        self.assertEqual(self.catched_msg['subject'], subject)
+        self.assertEqual(self.catched_msg['body'], body)
+
+        msg = self.catched_msg['msg']
+        self.assertEqual(msg['subject'], subject)
+        self.assertEqual(msg.get_charset(), Charset('utf-8'))
+        self.assertEqual(msg.get('Content-Type'), 'multipart/mixed; charset="utf-8"')
+
+        payload = msg.get_payload()
+        assert isinstance(payload, list)
+        self.assertEqual(len(payload), 2)
+
+        text, attach = payload
+        self.assertEqual(text.get_payload(decode=True).decode('utf-8'), body)
+        self.assertEqual(text.get_charset(), Charset('utf-8'))
+        self.assertEqual(attach.get_payload(decode=True).decode('utf-8'), body)
 
 if __name__ == "__main__":
     unittest.main()