diff --git a/Changes b/Changes
index f7cd0cf..e3acb5a 100644
--- a/Changes
+++ b/Changes
@@ -1,3 +1,6 @@
+0.32 2018-12-13
+    - [bugfix] Support verbatim string queries (#57; diewald).
+
 0.31 2018-10-31
     - [bugfix] Security upgrade of Jackson for CVE-2017-17485 and
       CVE-2018-7489 (diewald)
diff --git a/pom.xml b/pom.xml
index 8540867..3e5b271 100644
--- a/pom.xml
+++ b/pom.xml
@@ -4,7 +4,7 @@
 
 	<groupId>de.ids_mannheim.korap</groupId>
 	<artifactId>Koral</artifactId>
-	<version>0.31</version>
+	<version>0.32</version>
 	<packaging>jar</packaging>
 	<name>Koral</name>
 	<url>http://maven.apache.org</url>
diff --git a/src/main/antlr/collection/CollectionQueryLexer.g4 b/src/main/antlr/collection/CollectionQueryLexer.g4
index b286288..80dc91c 100644
--- a/src/main/antlr/collection/CollectionQueryLexer.g4
+++ b/src/main/antlr/collection/CollectionQueryLexer.g4
@@ -48,14 +48,13 @@
 REF                 : 'referTo';
 WS 					: ( ' ' | '\t' | '\r' | '\n' )+ -> channel(HIDDEN);
 fragment NO_RE      : ~[ \t\/];
-fragment ALPHABET   : ~('\t' | ' ' | '/' | '*' | '?' | '+' | '{' | '}' | '[' | ']'
-                    | '(' | ')' | '|' | '"' | ',' | '\'' | '\\' | '!' | '=' | '~' | '&' | '^' | '<' | '>' );
+fragment ALPHABET   : ~('\t' |
+      ' ' | '/' | '*' | '?' | '+' | '{' | '}' | '[' | ']'
+    | '(' | ')' | '|' | ',' | '\'' | '\\' | '!' | '=' | '~' | '&' | '^' | '<' | '>'
+    | '"' );
 // EM: allow ':' in ALPHABET 
 fragment ALPHA		: [a-zA-Z];
 
-ESC_QUOTE          : BACKSLASH QUOTE;
-
-
 DIGIT		: [0-9];
 DATE
 : DIGIT DIGIT DIGIT DIGIT (DASH DIGIT DIGIT (DASH DIGIT DIGIT)?)?
@@ -67,4 +66,5 @@
 WORD				: ALPHABET+;
 //WORD                : ALPHABET* ALPHA ALPHABET*;  // needs to have at least one alphabetical letter (non-numeric)
 
-REGEX     		    : SLASH .*? SLASH; 
+REGEX     		    : SLASH ~['/']*? (BACKSLASH SLASH ~['/']*?)* SLASH;
+MULTIWORD   		    : QUOTE ~['"']*? (BACKSLASH QUOTE ~['"']*?)* QUOTE; 
diff --git a/src/main/antlr/collection/CollectionQueryParser.g4 b/src/main/antlr/collection/CollectionQueryParser.g4
index 3ed74d2..bbe4d32 100644
--- a/src/main/antlr/collection/CollectionQueryParser.g4
+++ b/src/main/antlr/collection/CollectionQueryParser.g4
@@ -111,8 +111,7 @@
 ;
 
 multiword
-//: '"' ~'"'* '"'
-: QUOTE (~QUOTE  | ESC_QUOTE)* QUOTE
+: MULTIWORD
 ;
 
 relation
diff --git a/src/main/java/de/ids_mannheim/korap/query/serialize/CollectionQueryProcessor.java b/src/main/java/de/ids_mannheim/korap/query/serialize/CollectionQueryProcessor.java
index ccb1e6e..3848f5b 100644
--- a/src/main/java/de/ids_mannheim/korap/query/serialize/CollectionQueryProcessor.java
+++ b/src/main/java/de/ids_mannheim/korap/query/serialize/CollectionQueryProcessor.java
@@ -318,7 +318,8 @@
 
 			// remove leading and trailing slashes
 			if (stm.startsWith("/") && stm.endsWith("/")) {
-				stm = stm.substring(1, stm.length() - 1);
+				stm = stm.substring(1, stm.length() - 1)
+                    .replaceAll("\\\\\\\\","\\\\").replaceAll("\\\\/", "/");
 			};
             map.put("value", stm);
 		}
diff --git a/src/test/java/de/ids_mannheim/korap/query/test/collection/CollectionQueryProcessorTest.java b/src/test/java/de/ids_mannheim/korap/query/test/collection/CollectionQueryProcessorTest.java
index 991f923..3c37b34 100644
--- a/src/test/java/de/ids_mannheim/korap/query/test/collection/CollectionQueryProcessorTest.java
+++ b/src/test/java/de/ids_mannheim/korap/query/test/collection/CollectionQueryProcessorTest.java
@@ -7,6 +7,7 @@
 import java.io.IOException;
 
 import org.junit.Test;
+import org.junit.Ignore;
 
 import com.fasterxml.jackson.core.JsonProcessingException;
 import com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.JsonNode;
@@ -118,7 +119,7 @@
         assertEquals("match:ne", res.at("/collection/match").asText());
     }
 
-
+    
     @Test
     public void testSpecialCharacters () throws JsonProcessingException,
             IOException {
@@ -179,6 +180,35 @@
    }
 
     @Test
+    public void testVerbatimSpecial () throws JsonProcessingException, IOException {
+        collection = "corpusAuthor=\"Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von\"";
+        qs.setQuery(query, ql);
+        qs.setCollection(collection);
+        res = mapper.readTree(qs.toJSON());
+        assertEquals("koral:doc", res.at("/collection/@type").asText());
+        assertEquals("corpusAuthor", res.at("/collection/key").asText());
+        assertEquals("Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von", res.at("/collection/value").asText());
+        assertEquals("match:eq", res.at("/collection/match").asText());
+    }
+
+    @Test
+    public void testVerbatimNonGreedy () throws JsonProcessingException, IOException {
+        collection = "foundries=\"corenlp/constituency\" & foundries=\"corenlp/morpho\"";
+        qs.setQuery(query, ql);
+        qs.setCollection(collection);
+        res = mapper.readTree(qs.toJSON());
+        assertEquals("koral:docGroup", res.at("/collection/@type").asText());
+        assertEquals("operation:and", res.at("/collection/operation").asText());
+        assertEquals("koral:doc", res.at("/collection/operands/0/@type").asText());
+        assertEquals("foundries", res.at("/collection/operands/0/key").asText());
+        assertEquals("corenlp/constituency", res.at("/collection/operands/0/value").asText());
+        assertEquals("koral:doc", res.at("/collection/operands/1/@type").asText());
+        assertEquals("foundries", res.at("/collection/operands/1/key").asText());
+        assertEquals("corenlp/morpho", res.at("/collection/operands/1/value").asText());
+    }
+
+    
+    @Test
     public void testFlag () throws JsonProcessingException, IOException {
         collection = "textClass=politik/i";
         qs.setQuery(query, ql);
@@ -236,6 +266,18 @@
         assertEquals("match:eq", res.at("/collection/match").asText());
     }
 
+	@Test
+    public void testRegexEscape () throws JsonProcessingException, IOException {    
+        collection = "textClass=/po\\/litik/";
+        qs.setQuery(query, ql);
+        qs.setCollection(collection);
+        res = mapper.readTree(qs.toJSON());
+        assertEquals("koral:doc", res.at("/collection/@type").asText());
+        assertEquals("textClass", res.at("/collection/key").asText());
+        assertEquals("po/litik", res.at("/collection/value").asText());
+        assertEquals("type:regex", res.at("/collection/type").asText());
+        assertEquals("match:eq", res.at("/collection/match").asText());
+    } 
 
 
     @Test