diff --git a/netlib/utils.py b/netlib/utils.py
index 7499f71fc..fe11cb5be 100644
--- a/netlib/utils.py
+++ b/netlib/utils.py
@@ -439,10 +439,14 @@ def escaped_str_to_bytes(data):
     """
     Take an escaped string and return the unescaped bytes equivalent.
     """
-    if not isinstance(data, str):
+    if not isinstance(data, six.string_types):
+        if six.PY2:
+            raise ValueError("data must be str or unicode")
         raise ValueError("data must be str")
 
     if six.PY2:
+        if isinstance(data, unicode):
+            data = data.encode("utf8")
         return data.decode("string-escape")
 
     # This one is difficult - we use an undocumented Python API here
diff --git a/test/netlib/test_utils.py b/test/netlib/test_utils.py
index 1d8f7b0f9..671ae66c4 100644
--- a/test/netlib/test_utils.py
+++ b/test/netlib/test_utils.py
@@ -182,6 +182,9 @@ def test_bytes_to_escaped_str():
 
 def test_escaped_str_to_bytes():
     assert utils.escaped_str_to_bytes("foo") == b"foo"
-    assert utils.escaped_str_to_bytes(r"\x08") == b"\b"
-    assert utils.escaped_str_to_bytes(r"&!?=\\)") == br"&!?=\)"
-    assert utils.escaped_str_to_bytes(r"ü") == b'\xc3\xbc'
+    assert utils.escaped_str_to_bytes("\x08") == b"\b"
+    assert utils.escaped_str_to_bytes("&!?=\\\\)") == br"&!?=\)"
+    assert utils.escaped_str_to_bytes("ü") == b'\xc3\xbc'
+    assert utils.escaped_str_to_bytes(u"\\x08") == b"\b"
+    assert utils.escaped_str_to_bytes(u"&!?=\\\\)") == br"&!?=\)"
+    assert utils.escaped_str_to_bytes(u"ü") == b'\xc3\xbc'
\ No newline at end of file