diff --git a/src/epub_converter/html_epub_processor.py b/src/epub_converter/html_epub_processor.py
index 711406d..2cbdef4 100644
--- a/src/epub_converter/html_epub_processor.py
+++ b/src/epub_converter/html_epub_processor.py
@@ -26,9 +26,8 @@ class HtmlEpubProcessor:
             cleaned title
 
         """
-        title = BeautifulSoup(title_of_chapter, features="lxml").string
         # clean extra whitespace characters ([\r\n\t\f\v ])
-        title = re.sub(r"[\s\xa0]", " ", title).strip()
+        title = re.sub(r"[\s\xa0]", " ", title_of_chapter).strip()
         return title
 
     @staticmethod