diff --git a/src/osx/webview_webkit.mm b/src/osx/webview_webkit.mm
index 17f273603c..59617c81cf 100644
--- a/src/osx/webview_webkit.mm
+++ b/src/osx/webview_webkit.mm
@@ -906,13 +906,11 @@ void wxWebViewWebKit::SelectAll()
 
 wxString wxWebViewWebKit::GetSelectedSource() const
 {
-    wxString script = ("var range = window.getSelection().getRangeAt(0);"
-                       "var element = document.createElement('div');"
-                       "element.appendChild(range.cloneContents());"
-                       "return element.innerHTML;");
-    NSString *result = [m_webView stringByEvaluatingJavaScriptFromString:
-                                  wxNSStringWithWxString(script)];
-    return wxStringWithNSString(result);
+    DOMRange* dr = [m_webView selectedDOMRange];
+    if ( !dr )
+        return wxString();
+
+    return wxStringWithNSString([dr markupString]);
 }
 
 wxString wxWebViewWebKit::GetPageText() const
diff --git a/tests/controls/webtest.cpp b/tests/controls/webtest.cpp
index 6e7bd6da4c..fbb1bcd2ca 100644
--- a/tests/controls/webtest.cpp
+++ b/tests/controls/webtest.cpp
@@ -220,9 +220,18 @@ void WebTestCase::Selection()
 
     CPPUNIT_ASSERT(m_browser->HasSelection());
     CPPUNIT_ASSERT_EQUAL("Some strong text", m_browser->GetSelectedText());
-    //We lower case the result as ie returns tags in uppercase
-    CPPUNIT_ASSERT_EQUAL("some <strong>strong</strong> text",
-                         m_browser->GetSelectedSource().Lower());
+
+    // The web engine doesn't necessarily represent the HTML in the same way as
+    // we used above, e.g. IE uses upper case for all the tags while WebKit
+    // under OS X inserts plenty of its own <span> tags, so don't test for
+    // equality and just check that the source contains things we'd expect it
+    // to.
+    const wxString selSource = m_browser->GetSelectedSource();
+    WX_ASSERT_MESSAGE
+    (
+        ("Unexpected selection source: \"%s\"", selSource),
+        selSource.Lower().Matches("*some*<strong*strong</strong>*text*")
+    );
 
     m_browser->ClearSelection();
     CPPUNIT_ASSERT(!m_browser->HasSelection());