diff --git a/tests/testthat/test-snippet-parsing.R b/tests/testthat/test-snippet-parsing.R
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..ee89883
--- /dev/null
+++ b/tests/testthat/test-snippet-parsing.R
@@ -0,0 +1,84 @@
+# Snippets come in several shapes, and matching them as a whole used to require
+# one particular one, silently dropping the rest (issue #14).
+
+snippetOf <- function(left, match, right) {
+  paste0(
+    '<span class="context-left">', left, '</span>',
+    '<span class="match">', match, '</span>',
+    '<span class="context-right">', right, '</span>'
+  )
+}
+
+freqOf <- function(snippet, ...) {
+  RKorAPClient:::snippet2FreqTable(
+    snippet,
+    oldTable = dplyr::tibble(word = character(0), frequency = numeric(0)),
+    verbose = FALSE,
+    ...
+  )
+}
+
+test_that("the words of an ordinary snippet are counted", {
+  result <- freqOf(snippetOf("der grosse alte Baum ", "<mark>steht</mark>", " im tiefen dunklen Wald"))
+  expect_true(all(c("Baum", "Wald") %in% result$word))
+})
+
+test_that("a snippet cut at the sentence boundary is counted", {
+  # <span class="cutted"> appears inside the match of contains(<base/s=s>, ...)
+  # queries, which used to make the whole snippet be dropped
+  cut <- snippetOf(
+    'ein linker Kontext hier ',
+    '<mark>Treffer</mark><span class="cutted"></span>',
+    ' und rechts weiter'
+  )
+  result <- freqOf(cut)
+  expect_true(all(c("Kontext", "rechts") %in% result$word))
+})
+
+test_that("a snippet with an empty context is counted on its other side", {
+  # a match filling the whole sentence leaves one context span empty
+  result <- freqOf(snippetOf("", "<mark>Treffer</mark>", " nur rechts etwas"))
+  expect_true("rechts" %in% result$word)
+
+  result <- freqOf(snippetOf("nur links etwas ", "<mark>Treffer</mark>", ""))
+  expect_true("links" %in% result$word)
+})
+
+test_that("the more markers are not counted as words", {
+  result <- freqOf(snippetOf(
+    '<span class="more"></span>links davon ',
+    "<mark>Treffer</mark>",
+    ' rechts davon<span class="more"></span>'
+  ))
+  expect_true(all(c("links", "rechts") %in% result$word))
+  expect_false(any(grepl("span|more|class", result$word)))
+})
+
+test_that("both contexts empty yields no words rather than an error", {
+  expect_equal(nrow(freqOf(snippetOf("", "<mark>Treffer</mark>", ""))), 0)
+})
+
+test_that("a snippet without the expected spans is skipped", {
+  expect_equal(nrow(freqOf("<span class=\"nothing\">kein KWIC</span>")), 0)
+})
+
+test_that("findExample survives a fetch that returned no snippet column", {
+  # after a failed request collectedMatches has no snippet column at all, so
+  # that the example was character(0) and the assignment aborted with
+  # "replacement has length zero"
+  kco <- methods::new(
+    "KorAPConnection",
+    apiUrl = "https://example.invalid/",
+    KorAPUrl = "https://example.invalid/",
+    authorizationSupported = FALSE,
+    verbose = FALSE
+  )
+
+  testthat::local_mocked_bindings(
+    corpusQuery = function(...) methods::new("KorAPQuery", korapConnection = kco, totalResults = 1),
+    fetchNext = function(q, ...) q,
+    .package = "RKorAPClient"
+  )
+
+  expect_equal(RKorAPClient:::findExample(kco, query = "irgendwas"), "")
+})