diff --git a/package/gnuplot/Config.in b/package/gnuplot/Config.in
index 603c194fe5..8068a7283b 100644
--- a/package/gnuplot/Config.in
+++ b/package/gnuplot/Config.in
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
 config BR2_PACKAGE_GNUPLOT
 	bool "gnuplot"
+	select BR2_PACKAGE_READLINE if !BR2_PACKAGE_LIBEDIT
 	help
 	  A portable command-line driven graphing utility.
 
diff --git a/package/gnuplot/gnuplot.mk b/package/gnuplot/gnuplot.mk
index 91e9bfb9bf..53df69e251 100644
--- a/package/gnuplot/gnuplot.mk
+++ b/package/gnuplot/gnuplot.mk
@@ -41,8 +41,9 @@ endif
 ifeq ($(BR2_PACKAGE_READLINE),y)
 GNUPLOT_CONF_OPTS += --with-readline=gnu
 GNUPLOT_DEPENDENCIES += readline
-else
-GNUPLOT_CONF_OPTS += --without-readline
+else ifeq ($(BR2_PACKAGE_LIBEDIT),y)
+GNUPLOT_CONF_OPTS += --with-readline=bsd
+GNUPLOT_DEPENDENCIES += libedit
 endif
 
 # Remove Javascript scripts, lua scripts, PostScript files