diff --git a/read.c b/read.c
index 632c7e7a6e91eddfb67e349d284c316b7fb06648..5e80cc5cd76023c57cba390027136a7bdabec895 100644
--- a/read.c
+++ b/read.c
@@ -79,10 +79,13 @@ readFile(char *filename, FontPtr font)
         return -1;
     }
 
+    /* FreeType will handle Unicode and automatically map ISO-8859-1 to
+     * Unicode for us -- everything else needs a mapping */
     encoding_name = faceEncoding(face);
     if(encoding_name == NULL) {
         symbol = 1;
-    } else if(strcasecmp(encoding_name, "iso10646-1") != 0) {
+    } else if((strcasecmp(encoding_name, "iso10646-1") != 0) &&
+              (strcasecmp(encoding_name, "iso8859-1") != 0)) {
         if(reencode_flag)
             mapping = FontEncMapFind(encoding_name,
                                      FONT_ENCODING_UNICODE, 0, 0, NULL);

