diff --git a/django/core/mail.py b/django/core/mail.py
index 9c63569efa..cf8b5fec13 100644
--- a/django/core/mail.py
+++ b/django/core/mail.py
@@ -169,6 +169,9 @@ class EmailMessage(object):
     """
     A container for email information.
     """
+    content_subtype = 'plain'
+    multipart_subtype = 'mixed'
+
     def __init__(self, subject='', body='', from_email=None, to=None, bcc=None,
             connection=None, attachments=None):
         self.to = to or []
@@ -185,10 +188,10 @@ class EmailMessage(object):
         return self.connection
 
     def message(self):
-        msg = SafeMIMEText(self.body, 'plain', settings.DEFAULT_CHARSET)
+        msg = SafeMIMEText(self.body, self.content_subtype, settings.DEFAULT_CHARSET)
         if self.attachments:
             body_msg = msg
-            msg = SafeMIMEMultipart()
+            msg = SafeMIMEMultipart(_subtype=self.multipart_subtype)
             if self.body:
                 msg.attach(body_msg)
             for attachment in self.attachments:
@@ -216,14 +219,17 @@ class EmailMessage(object):
         """Send the email message."""
         return self.get_connection(fail_silently).send_messages([self])
 
-    def attach(self, filename, content=None, mimetype=None):
+    def attach(self, filename=None, content=None, mimetype=None):
         """
-        Attaches a file with the given filename and content.
+        Attaches a file with the given filename and content. The filename can
+        be omitted (useful for multipart/alternative messages) and the mimetype
+        is guessed, if not provided.
 
-        Alternatively, the first parameter can be a MIMEBase subclass, which
-        is inserted directly into the resulting message attachments.
+        If the first parameter is a MIMEBase subclass it is inserted directly
+        into the resulting message attachments.
         """
         if isinstance(filename, MIMEBase):
+            assert content == mimetype == None
             self.attachements.append(filename)
         else:
             assert content is not None
@@ -252,9 +258,22 @@ class EmailMessage(object):
             attachment = MIMEBase(basetype, subtype)
             attachment.set_payload(content)
             Encoders.encode_base64(attachment)
-        attachment.add_header('Content-Disposition', 'attachment', filename=filename)
+        if filename:
+            attachment.add_header('Content-Disposition', 'attachment', filename=filename)
         return attachment
 
+class EmailMultiAlternatives(EmailMessage):
+    """
+    A version of EmailMessage that makes it easy to send multipart/alternative
+    messages. For example, including text and HTML versions of the text is
+    made easier.
+    """
+    multipart_subtype = 'alternative'
+
+    def attach_alternative(self, content, mimetype=None):
+        """Attach an alternative content representation."""
+        self.attach(content=content, mimetype=mimetype)
+
 def send_mail(subject, message, from_email, recipient_list, fail_silently=False, auth_user=None, auth_password=None):
     """
     Easy wrapper for sending a single message to a recipient list. All members
diff --git a/docs/email.txt b/docs/email.txt
index 3868387884..4d010efaf3 100644
--- a/docs/email.txt
+++ b/docs/email.txt
@@ -281,6 +281,42 @@ The class has the following methods:
 
         message.attach_file('/images/weather_map.png')
 
+Sending alternative content types
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+
+It is often useful to include multiple versions of the content in an e-mail.
+For instance, sending both text and HTML versions of an e-mail. You can do
+this using the ``EmailMultiAlternatives`` class. This sub-class of
+``EmailMessage`` has an ``attach_alternative()`` method for including
+extra versions of the message body in the e-mail. All the other methods
+(including the class initialization) are inherited directly from
+``EmailMessage``.
+
+To send a text and HTML combination, you could write::
+
+    from django.core.mail import EmailMultiAlternatives
+
+    subject, from_email, to = ...
+    text_content = "This is an important message."
+    html_content = "<p>This is an <strong>important</strong> message."
+    msg = EmailMultiAlternatives(subject, text_content, from_email, to)
+    msg.attach_alternative(html_content, "text/html")
+    msg.send()
+
+
+
+By default, the MIME type of the ``body`` parameter in an ``EmailMessage`` is
+``"text/plain"``. It is good practice to leave this alone, since it guarantees
+that any recipient will be able to read the e-mail, regardless of their mail
+client. However, if you are confident that your recipients can handle an
+alternative content type, you can use the ``content_subtype`` attribute on the
+``EmailMessage`` class to change the main content type. The major type will
+always be ``"text"``, but you can change to the subtype. For example::
+
+    msg = EmailMessage(subject, html_content, from_email, to)
+    msg.content_subtype = "html"  # Main content is now text/html
+    msg.send()
+
 SMTP network connections
 -------------------------