diff --git a/scrapy/spidermanager.py b/scrapy/spidermanager.py
index 5715b7793..93e91bcb4 100644
--- a/scrapy/spidermanager.py
+++ b/scrapy/spidermanager.py
@@ -15,7 +15,7 @@ from scrapy.utils.spider import iter_spider_classes
 class SpiderManager(object):
 
     def __init__(self, settings):
-        self.spider_modules = settings['SPIDER_MODULES']
+        self.spider_modules = settings.getlist('SPIDER_MODULES')
         self._spiders = {}
         for name in self.spider_modules:
             for module in walk_modules(name):
diff --git a/tests/test_spidermanager/__init__.py b/tests/test_spidermanager/__init__.py
index 69ab3b82a..94b8a1dc8 100644
--- a/tests/test_spidermanager/__init__.py
+++ b/tests/test_spidermanager/__init__.py
@@ -63,6 +63,13 @@ class SpiderManagerTest(unittest.TestCase):
         self.spiderman = SpiderManager.from_settings(settings)
         assert len(self.spiderman._spiders) == 1
 
+    def test_load_spider_module(self):
+        prefix = 'tests.test_spidermanager.test_spiders.'
+        module = ','.join(prefix + s for s in ('spider1', 'spider2'))
+        settings = Settings({'SPIDER_MODULES': module})
+        self.spiderman = SpiderManager.from_settings(settings)
+        assert len(self.spiderman._spiders) == 2
+
     def test_load_base_spider(self):
         module = 'tests.test_spidermanager.test_spiders.spider0'
         settings = Settings({'SPIDER_MODULES': [module]})