diff --git a/Pod/Classes/GDataXMLNode.m b/Pod/Classes/GDataXMLNode.m
index 7c6617f..2ba1e46 100644
--- a/Pod/Classes/GDataXMLNode.m
+++ b/Pod/Classes/GDataXMLNode.m
@@ -38,7 +38,7 @@
 @class GDataXMLElement, GDataXMLDocument;
 
 
-static const int kGDataXMLParseOptions = (XML_PARSE_NOCDATA | XML_PARSE_NOBLANKS);
+static const int kGDataXMLParseOptions = (XML_PARSE_NOCDATA | XML_PARSE_NOBLANKS | XML_PARSE_HUGE);
 static const int kGDataHTMLParseOptions = (HTML_PARSE_NOWARNING | HTML_PARSE_NOERROR);
 
 // dictionary key callbacks for string cache
@@ -479,8 +479,7 @@ - (void)setStringValue:(NSString *)str {
             
             // attribute or element node
             
-            // do we need to call xmlEncodeSpecialChars?
-            xmlNodeSetContent(xmlNode_, GDataGetXMLString(str));
+            xmlNodeSetContent(xmlNode_, xmlEncodeSpecialChars(NULL, GDataGetXMLString(str)));
         }
     }
 }