diff --git a/scrapy/trunk/docs/ref/request-response.rst b/scrapy/trunk/docs/ref/request-response.rst
index cd1e4ff77..7e416c822 100644
--- a/scrapy/trunk/docs/ref/request-response.rst
+++ b/scrapy/trunk/docs/ref/request-response.rst
@@ -21,7 +21,7 @@ generated the request.
 Request objects
 ===============
 
-.. class:: Request(url, callback=None, method='GET', body=None, headers=None, cookies=None, meta=None, url_encoding='utf-8', dont_filter=None)
+.. class:: Request(url, callback=None, method='GET', body=None, headers=None, cookies=None, meta=None, encoding='utf-8', dont_filter=None)
 
     A :class:`Request` object represents an HTTP request, which is usually
     generated in the Spider and executed by the Downloader, and thus generating
@@ -44,9 +44,9 @@ Request objects
 
     ``cookies`` is a dict containing the request cookies
 
-    ``url_encoding`` is a string with the encoding of the url of this request.
-    The request URL will be percent encoded using this encoding before
-    downloading 
+    ``encoding`` is a string with the encoding of this request. This encoding
+    will be used to percent-encode the URL and to convert the body to str (when
+    given as unicode).
 
     ``dont_filter`` is a boolean which indicates that this request should not
     be filtered by the scheduler. This is used when you want to perform an
diff --git a/scrapy/trunk/scrapy/http/request.py b/scrapy/trunk/scrapy/http/request.py
index 07b517e1f..444ef0861 100644
--- a/scrapy/trunk/scrapy/http/request.py
+++ b/scrapy/trunk/scrapy/http/request.py
@@ -18,28 +18,19 @@ from scrapy.utils.defer import chain_deferred
 class Request(object):
 
     def __init__(self, url, callback=None, method='GET', headers=None, body=None, 
-                 cookies=None, meta=None, url_encoding='utf-8', dont_filter=None):
-
-        self.encoding = url_encoding  # this one has to be set first
-        self.set_url(url)
+                 cookies=None, meta=None, encoding='utf-8', dont_filter=None):
 
+        self.encoding = encoding  # this one has to be set first
         self.method = method.upper()
+        self.set_url(url)
+        self.set_body(body)
 
-        # body
-        if isinstance(body, dict):
-            body = urllib.urlencode(body)
-        self.body = body
-
-        # callback / deferred
         if callable(callback):
             callback = defer.Deferred().addCallback(callback)
         self.deferred = callback or defer.Deferred()
 
-        # request cookies
         self.cookies = cookies or {}
-        # request headers
-        self.headers = Headers(headers or {}, encoding=url_encoding)
-        # dont_filter be filtered by scheduler
+        self.headers = Headers(headers or {}, encoding=encoding)
         self.dont_filter = dont_filter
 
         self.meta = {} if meta is None else dict(meta)
@@ -57,6 +48,20 @@ class Request(object):
         self._url = Url(safe_url_string(decoded_url, self.encoding))
     url = property(lambda x: x._url, set_url)
 
+    def set_body(self, body):
+        # TODO: move dict constructor to another Request class
+        if isinstance(body, dict):
+            self._body = urllib.urlencode(body)
+        elif body is None:
+            self._body = None
+        elif isinstance(body, str):
+            self._body = body
+        elif isinstance(body, unicode):
+            self._body = body.encode(self.encoding)
+        else:
+            raise TypeError("Request body must either str, unicode or None. Got: '%s'" % type(body).__name__)
+    body = property(lambda x: x._body, set_body)
+
     def __str__(self):
         if self.method == 'GET':
             return "<%s>" % self.url
diff --git a/scrapy/trunk/scrapy/tests/test_http_request.py b/scrapy/trunk/scrapy/tests/test_http_request.py
index 2fdc56abb..60411ac6a 100644
--- a/scrapy/trunk/scrapy/tests/test_http_request.py
+++ b/scrapy/trunk/scrapy/tests/test_http_request.py
@@ -101,9 +101,26 @@ class RequestTest(unittest.TestCase):
         self.assert_(isinstance(r.url, str))
 
         # url encoding
-        r = Request(url=u"http://www.scrapy.org/price/\xa3", url_encoding="utf-8")
-        self.assert_(isinstance(r.url, str))
-        self.assertEqual(r.url, "http://www.scrapy.org/price/%C2%A3")
+        r1 = Request(url=u"http://www.scrapy.org/price/\xa3", encoding="utf-8")
+        r2 = Request(url=u"http://www.scrapy.org/price/\xa3", encoding="latin1")
+        self.assertEqual(r1.url, "http://www.scrapy.org/price/%C2%A3")
+        self.assertEqual(r2.url, "http://www.scrapy.org/price/%A3")
+
+    def test_body(self):
+        r1 = Request(url="http://www.example.com/")
+        assert r1.body is None
+
+        r2 = Request(url="http://www.example.com/", body="")
+        assert isinstance(r2.body, str)
+        self.assertEqual(r2.encoding, 'utf-8') # default encoding
+
+        r3 = Request(url="http://www.example.com/", body=u"Price: \xa3100", encoding='utf-8')
+        assert isinstance(r3.body, str)
+        self.assertEqual(r3.body, "Price: \xc2\xa3100")
+
+        r4 = Request(url="http://www.example.com/", body=u"Price: \xa3100", encoding='latin1')
+        assert isinstance(r4.body, str)
+        self.assertEqual(r4.body, "Price: \xa3100")
 
     def test_copy(self):
         """Test Request copy"""