diff --git a/src/calibre/gui2/viewer/main.py b/src/calibre/gui2/viewer/main.py
index e32794b1c3..80b24cf3ce 100644
--- a/src/calibre/gui2/viewer/main.py
+++ b/src/calibre/gui2/viewer/main.py
@@ -982,12 +982,13 @@ class EbookViewer(MainWindow):
                 self.action_table_of_contents.setChecked(False)
             if isbytestring(pathtoebook):
                 pathtoebook = force_unicode(pathtoebook, filesystem_encoding)
+            pathtoebook = os.path.abspath(pathtoebook)
             vh = vprefs.get('viewer_open_history', [])
             try:
                 vh.remove(pathtoebook)
             except:
                 pass
-            vh.insert(0, os.path.abspath(pathtoebook))
+            vh.insert(0, pathtoebook)
             vprefs.set('viewer_open_history', vh[:50])
             self.build_recent_menu()
             self.view.set_book_data(self.iterator)