diff --git a/jekyll.gemspec b/jekyll.gemspec
index def6b568..970a8ddc 100644
--- a/jekyll.gemspec
+++ b/jekyll.gemspec
@@ -143,6 +143,7 @@ Gem::Specification.new do |s|
     test/test_redcarpet.rb
     test/test_site.rb
     test/test_tags.rb
+    test/test_redcloth.rb
   ]
   # = MANIFEST =
 
diff --git a/lib/jekyll.rb b/lib/jekyll.rb
index 9998799c..6d5afd85 100644
--- a/lib/jekyll.rb
+++ b/lib/jekyll.rb
@@ -98,6 +98,9 @@ module Jekyll
         'coderay_bold_every'        => 10,
         'coderay_css'               => 'style'
       }
+    },
+    'redcloth'        => {
+      'hard_breaks'   => true
     }
   }
 
diff --git a/lib/jekyll/converters/textile.rb b/lib/jekyll/converters/textile.rb
index da823d35..6572b518 100644
--- a/lib/jekyll/converters/textile.rb
+++ b/lib/jekyll/converters/textile.rb
@@ -27,7 +27,23 @@ module Jekyll
 
     def convert(content)
       setup
-      RedCloth.new(content).to_html
+
+      # Shortcut if config doesn't contain RedCloth section
+      return RedCloth.new(content).to_html if @config['redcloth'].nil?
+
+      # List of attributes defined on RedCloth
+      # (from http://redcloth.rubyforge.org/classes/RedCloth/TextileDoc.html)
+      attrs = ['filter_classes', 'filter_html', 'filter_ids', 'filter_styles',
+              'hard_breaks', 'lite_mode', 'no_span_caps', 'sanitize_html']
+
+      r = RedCloth.new(content)
+
+      # Set attributes in r if they are NOT nil in the config
+      attrs.each do |attr|
+        r.instance_variable_set("@#{attr}".to_sym, @config['redcloth'][attr]) unless @config['redcloth'][attr].nil?
+      end
+
+      r.to_html
     end
   end
 
diff --git a/test/test_redcloth.rb b/test/test_redcloth.rb
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..55e52cdf
--- /dev/null
+++ b/test/test_redcloth.rb
@@ -0,0 +1,86 @@
+require File.dirname(__FILE__) + '/helper'
+
+class TestRedCloth < Test::Unit::TestCase
+
+  context "RedCloth default (no explicit config) hard_breaks enabled" do
+    setup do
+      @textile = TextileConverter.new
+    end
+    
+    should "preserve single line breaks in HTML output" do 
+      assert_equal "<p>line1<br />\nline2</p>", @textile.convert("p. line1\nline2").strip
+    end
+  end
+
+  context "Default hard_breaks enabled w/ redcloth section, no hard_breaks value" do
+    setup do
+      config = {
+        'redcloth'      => {}
+        }
+      @textile = TextileConverter.new config
+    end
+    
+    should "preserve single line breaks in HTML output" do 
+      assert_equal "<p>line1<br />\nline2</p>", @textile.convert("p. line1\nline2").strip
+    end
+  end
+
+  context "RedCloth with hard_breaks enabled" do
+    setup do
+      config = {
+        'redcloth'      => {
+          'hard_breaks' => true # default
+        }
+      }
+      @textile = TextileConverter.new config
+    end
+    
+    should "preserve single line breaks in HTML output" do 
+      assert_equal "<p>line1<br />\nline2</p>", @textile.convert("p. line1\nline2").strip
+    end
+  end
+
+  context "RedCloth with hard_breaks disabled" do
+    setup do
+      config = {
+        'redcloth'      => {
+          'hard_breaks' => false
+        }
+      }
+      @textile = TextileConverter.new config
+    end
+
+    should "not generate break tags in HTML output" do
+      assert_equal "<p>line1\nline2</p>", @textile.convert("p. line1\nline2").strip
+    end
+  end
+
+  context "RedCloth w/no_span_caps set to false" do
+    setup do
+      config = {
+        'redcloth'       => {
+          'no_span_caps' => false
+        }
+      }
+      @textile = TextileConverter.new config
+    end
+    should "generate span tags around capitalized words" do
+      assert_equal "<p><span class=\"caps\">NSC</span></p>", @textile.convert("NSC").strip
+    end
+  end
+
+  context "RedCloth w/no_span_caps set to true" do
+    setup do
+      config = {
+        'redcloth'       => {
+          'no_span_caps' => true
+        }
+      }
+      @textile = TextileConverter.new config
+    end
+
+    should "not generate span tags around capitalized words" do
+      assert_equal "<p>NSC</p>", @textile.convert("NSC").strip
+    end
+  end
+end