diff --git a/Happstack/Helpers/HtmlOutput/Common.hs b/Happstack/Helpers/HtmlOutput/Common.hs
--- a/Happstack/Helpers/HtmlOutput/Common.hs
+++ b/Happstack/Helpers/HtmlOutput/Common.hs
@@ -11,6 +11,7 @@
 import Data.String.Utils
 import qualified Data.ByteString.Char8 as B
 import qualified Data.ByteString.Lazy.Char8 as L
+import qualified Data.ByteString.Lazy.UTF8 as UTF
 
 -- | fullUrlLink \"http://www.google.com\"
 -- | for when you want a link that the anchor text is the full url. eg, for displaying a url for darcs get.
@@ -245,5 +246,6 @@
 
 newtype HtmlString = HtmlString String
 instance ToMessage HtmlString where
-  toContentType _ = B.pack "text/html"
-  toMessage (HtmlString s) = L.pack s 
+  toContentType _ = B.pack "text/html;charset=utf-8"
+  toMessage (HtmlString s) = UTF.fromString s
+
diff --git a/happstack-helpers.cabal b/happstack-helpers.cabal
--- a/happstack-helpers.cabal
+++ b/happstack-helpers.cabal
@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
 Name: happstack-helpers
-Version: 0.49
+Version: 0.50
 License: BSD3
 License-file: bsd3.txt
 Description: Functions I found I was using repeatedly when programming Happstack based web-apps. 
@@ -41,7 +41,7 @@
                , HStringTemplate >= 0.4.0 && < 0.7.0
                , HStringTemplateHelpers >= 0.0.14 
                , safe >= 0.2 && < 0.3
-               , MissingH == 1.0.3
+               , MissingH >= 1.0.3
                , containers >= 0.2.0.0 && < 0.3.0.0
                , parsec >= 2.1.0.0 && < 2.2.0.0
                , haskell98 >= 1.0.0.0 && < 2.0.0.0
@@ -55,4 +55,5 @@
                , DebugTraceHelpers
                , network >= 2.2
                , HTTP >= 4000
+               , utf8-string >= 0.3.6
   ghc-options: -Wall