diff --git a/ChangeLog b/ChangeLog
index c5833380..a1acbc0a 100644
--- a/ChangeLog
+++ b/ChangeLog
@@ -1,3 +1,8 @@
+Sun Nov 17 23:36:06 CET 2002 Daniel Veillard <daniel@veillard.com>
+
+	* python/libxml.c: fixing bug #98792 , node may have no doc
+	  and dereferencing without checking ain't good ...
+
 Sun Nov 17 10:25:43 CET 2002 Daniel Veillard <daniel@veillard.com>
 
 	* configure.in: preparing release 2.4.27
diff --git a/python/libxml.c b/python/libxml.c
index 2cc543a8..e64082e4 100644
--- a/python/libxml.c
+++ b/python/libxml.c
@@ -1995,7 +1995,7 @@ libxml_serializeNode(ATTRIBUTE_UNUSED PyObject * self, PyObject * args)
         py_retval = libxml_charPtrWrap((char *) c_retval);
     } else {
         doc = node->doc;
-        if (doc->type == XML_DOCUMENT_NODE) {
+        if ((doc == NULL) || (doc->type == XML_DOCUMENT_NODE)) {
             xmlOutputBufferPtr buf;
             xmlCharEncodingHandlerPtr handler = NULL;