diff --git a/tests/http_parser_test.py b/tests/http_parser_test.py
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e58903a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/tests/http_parser_test.py
@@ -0,0 +1,33 @@
+import html.entities
+
+from hypothesis import given
+from hypothesis.strategies import sampled_from
+
+from matrix.colors import MatrixHtmlParser
+
+try:
+    # python 3
+    html_entities = [(name, char, ord(char))
+                     for name, char in html.entities.html5.items()
+                     if not name.endswith(';')]
+except AttributeError:
+    # python 2
+    html_entities = [(name, unichr(codepoint), codepoint)
+                     for name, codepoint
+                     in html.entities.name2codepoint.items()]
+
+
+@given(sampled_from(html_entities))
+def test_html_named_entity_parsing(entitydef):
+    name = entitydef[0]
+    character = entitydef[1]
+    parser = MatrixHtmlParser()
+    assert parser.unescape('&{};'.format(name)) == character
+
+
+@given(sampled_from(html_entities))
+def test_html_numeric_reference_parsing(entitydef):
+    character = entitydef[1]
+    num = entitydef[2]
+    parser = MatrixHtmlParser()
+    assert parser.unescape('&#{};'.format(num)) == character