diff --git a/src/calibre/__init__.py b/src/calibre/__init__.py
index fdfb91d7bb..917df54f6b 100644
--- a/src/calibre/__init__.py
+++ b/src/calibre/__init__.py
@@ -562,9 +562,9 @@ def entity_to_unicode(match, exceptions=[], encoding='cp1252',
             return check(chr(num).decode(encoding))
         except UnicodeDecodeError:
             return check(my_unichr(num))
-    from html5lib.constants import entities
+    from calibre.ebooks.html_entities import html5_entities
     try:
-        return check(entities[ent])
+        return check(html5_entities[ent])
     except KeyError:
         pass
     from htmlentitydefs import name2codepoint
diff --git a/src/calibre/ebooks/html_entities.py b/src/calibre/ebooks/html_entities.py
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..aba8ba80e1
--- /dev/null
+++ b/src/calibre/ebooks/html_entities.py
@@ -0,0 +1,12 @@
+#!/usr/bin/env python
+# vim:fileencoding=utf-8
+from __future__ import (unicode_literals, division, absolute_import,
+                        print_function)
+
+__license__ = 'GPL v3'
+__copyright__ = '2013, Kovid Goyal <kovid at kovidgoyal.net>'
+
+from html5lib.constants import entities
+
+html5_entities = {k.replace(';', ''):v for k, v in entities.iteritems()}
+