diff --git a/magic.py b/magic.py
index 07f7096a..af4fe3a1 100644
--- a/magic.py
+++ b/magic.py
@@ -18,12 +18,18 @@
 
 import sys
 import glob
+import locale
 import ctypes
 import ctypes.util
 import threading
 
 from ctypes import c_char_p, c_int, c_size_t, c_void_p, byref, POINTER
 
+try:
+    import chardet
+except ImportError:
+    chardet = None
+
 
 class MagicException(Exception):
     def __init__(self, message):
@@ -214,8 +220,20 @@ def errorcheck_negative_one(result, func, args):
 def maybe_decode(s):
     if str == bytes:
         return s
-    else:
-        return s.decode('utf-8')
+    try:
+        return s.decode('utf-8')  # try 'utf-8'
+    except UnicodeDecodeError:
+        pass
+    try:
+        return s.decode(locale.getpreferredencoding())  # try system default encoding
+    except UnicodeDecodeError:
+        pass
+    if chardet is not None:
+        # try chardet, if available
+        encoding = chardet.detect(s)['encoding']
+        if encoding is not None:
+            return s.decode(encoding)
+    raise  # give up
 
 
 def coerce_filename(filename):
diff --git a/test/test.py b/test/test.py
index 0f3aac2e..0a4254f4 100755
--- a/test/test.py
+++ b/test/test.py
@@ -59,6 +59,7 @@ def test_mime_types(self):
                 'test.pdf': 'application/pdf',
                 'test.gz': ('application/gzip', 'application/x-gzip'),
                 'text.txt': 'text/plain',
+                'msword.doc': 'application/msword',
                 b'\xce\xbb'.decode('utf-8'): 'text/plain',
                 b'\xce\xbb': 'text/plain',
             })
diff --git a/test/testdata/msword.doc b/test/testdata/msword.doc
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..7bed3c29
Binary files /dev/null and b/test/testdata/msword.doc differ