diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index 9562747..e8c9815 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -182,6 +182,7 @@ You can set the following variables:
 - KERL_SASL_STARTUP use SASL system startup instead of minimal
 - KERL_USE_AUTOCONF use autoconf in the builds process
 - KERL_INSTALL_MANPAGES if non-empty will install manpages
+- KERL_INSTALL_HTMLDOCS if non-empty will install HTML docs
 
 Glossary
 ========
@@ -262,6 +263,11 @@ You can have SASL started automatically setting KERL_SASL_STARTUP=yes in your $H
 
 You can have manpages installed automatically setting KERL_INSTALL_MANPAGES=yes in your $HOME/.kerlrc file or prepending it to the command line
 
+#### HTML docs installation
+
+You can have HTML docs installed automatically setting KERL_INSTALL_HTMLDOCS=yes in your $HOME/.kerlrc file or prepending it to the command line
+
+
 update
 ------
 
diff --git a/kerl b/kerl
index 56852c3..02c36c2 100755
--- a/kerl
+++ b/kerl
@@ -446,6 +446,16 @@ ACTIVATE
         echo "Extracting manpages"
         cd "$absdir" && tar xfz "$KERL_DOWNLOAD_DIR/$FILENAME"
     fi
+
+    if [ "$rel" != "git" -a -n "$KERL_INSTALL_HTMLDOCS" ]; then
+        echo "Fetching and installing HTML docs..."
+        FILENAME="otp_doc_html_$rel.tar.gz"
+        download "$FILENAME"
+        echo "Extracting HTML docs"
+        (cd "$absdir" && mkdir -p html && \
+         tar -C "$absdir/html" -xzf "$KERL_DOWNLOAD_DIR/$FILENAME")
+    fi
+
     echo "You can activate this installation running the following command:"
     echo ". $absdir/activate"
     echo "Later on, you can leave the installation typing:"