diff --git a/lib/readline.js b/lib/readline.js
index 75e51f8d10..c52f3e88b2 100644
--- a/lib/readline.js
+++ b/lib/readline.js
@@ -941,7 +941,7 @@ function emitKey(stream, s) {
     key.name = 'space';
     key.meta = (s.length === 2);
 
-  } else if (s <= '\x1a') {
+  } else if (s.length === 1 && s <= '\x1a') {
     // ctrl+letter
     key.name = String.fromCharCode(s.charCodeAt(0) + 'a'.charCodeAt(0) - 1);
     key.ctrl = true;
diff --git a/test/simple/test-readline-interface.js b/test/simple/test-readline-interface.js
index fc20d1d212..8976b8eb28 100644
--- a/test/simple/test-readline-interface.js
+++ b/test/simple/test-readline-interface.js
@@ -155,6 +155,18 @@ FakeInput.prototype.end = function() {};
   assert.equal(callCount, expectedLines.length - 1);
   rli.close();
 
+  // \r at start of input should output blank line
+  fi = new FakeInput();
+  rli = new readline.Interface({ input: fi, output: fi, terminal: true });
+  expectedLines = ['', 'foo' ];
+  callCount = 0;
+  rli.on('line', function(line) {
+    assert.equal(line, expectedLines[callCount]);
+    callCount++;
+  });
+  fi.emit('data', '\rfoo\r');
+  assert.equal(callCount, expectedLines.length);
+  rli.close();
 
   // sending a multi-byte utf8 char over multiple writes
   var buf = Buffer('☮', 'utf8');