diff --git a/Doc/sgml/catalog b/Doc/sgml/catalog
index 7546c2274dd..aeae92c2360 100644
--- a/Doc/sgml/catalog
+++ b/Doc/sgml/catalog
@@ -1,4 +1,7 @@
+-- SGML-Open-style catalog for the Python documentation system --
+
 CATALOG	"iso/catalog"
 CATALOG	"oasis/catalog"
 
 PUBLIC  "+//IDN python.org//DTD Python Documentation 1.0//EN" "python.dtd"
+PUBLIC  "+//IDN python.org//ENTITIES Python Version//EN" "version.ent"
diff --git a/Doc/sgml/python.dtd b/Doc/sgml/python.dtd
index e9bf50a078e..88aace0baf0 100644
--- a/Doc/sgml/python.dtd
+++ b/Doc/sgml/python.dtd
@@ -7,6 +7,11 @@
 	  PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD Exchange Table Model 19960430//EN">
 &oasis-tables.mod;
 
+<!-- define the &version; general entity -->
+<!ENTITY python-version.ent
+	  PUBLIC "+//IDN python.org//ENTITIES Python Version//EN">
+&python-version.ent;
+
 <!ELEMENT input - - EMPTY>
 <!ATTLIST input
 	  %common.att;
diff --git a/Doc/sgml/version.ent b/Doc/sgml/version.ent
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..c6259b14e09
--- /dev/null
+++ b/Doc/sgml/version.ent
@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+<!-- Version number for the Python interpreter -->
+<!ENTITY version CDATA "1.5">