diff --git a/Lib/test/test_urllib2.py b/Lib/test/test_urllib2.py
index b3659f442e4..dbd1c60ec24 100644
--- a/Lib/test/test_urllib2.py
+++ b/Lib/test/test_urllib2.py
@@ -1466,16 +1466,25 @@ def test_HTTPError_interface(self):
         self.assertEqual(str(err), expected_errmsg)
 
 class RequestTests(unittest.TestCase):
+    class PutRequest(Request):
+        method='PUT'
 
     def setUp(self):
         self.get = Request("http://www.python.org/~jeremy/")
         self.post = Request("http://www.python.org/~jeremy/",
                             "data",
                             headers={"X-Test": "test"})
+        self.head = Request("http://www.python.org/~jeremy/", method='HEAD')
+        self.put = self.PutRequest("http://www.python.org/~jeremy/")
+        self.force_post = self.PutRequest("http://www.python.org/~jeremy/",
+            method="POST")
 
     def test_method(self):
         self.assertEqual("POST", self.post.get_method())
         self.assertEqual("GET", self.get.get_method())
+        self.assertEqual("HEAD", self.head.get_method())
+        self.assertEqual("PUT", self.put.get_method())
+        self.assertEqual("POST", self.force_post.get_method())
 
     def test_data(self):
         self.assertFalse(self.get.data)
diff --git a/Lib/urllib/request.py b/Lib/urllib/request.py
index 4765a942886..bceb3297c8e 100644
--- a/Lib/urllib/request.py
+++ b/Lib/urllib/request.py
@@ -271,7 +271,8 @@ def __init__(self, url, data=None, headers={},
             origin_req_host = request_host(self)
         self.origin_req_host = origin_req_host
         self.unverifiable = unverifiable
-        self.method = method
+        if method:
+            self.method = method
 
     @property
     def full_url(self):
@@ -320,12 +321,8 @@ def _parse(self):
 
     def get_method(self):
         """Return a string indicating the HTTP request method."""
-        if self.method is not None:
-            return self.method
-        elif self.data is not None:
-            return "POST"
-        else:
-            return "GET"
+        default_method = "POST" if self.data is not None else "GET"
+        return getattr(self, 'method', default_method)
 
     def get_full_url(self):
         return self.full_url
diff --git a/Misc/NEWS b/Misc/NEWS
index 456307a25cf..79ab3a7f172 100644
--- a/Misc/NEWS
+++ b/Misc/NEWS
@@ -12,6 +12,9 @@ Core and Builtins
 Library
 -------
 
+- Issue #18978: ``urllib.request.Request`` now allows the method to be
+  indicated on the class and no longer sets it to None in ``__init__``.
+
 - Issue #18626: the inspect module now offers a basic command line
   introspection interface (Initial patch by Claudiu Popa)