diff --git a/Cargo.toml b/Cargo.toml
index 1de19d7..c64887b 100644
--- a/Cargo.toml
+++ b/Cargo.toml
@@ -45,6 +45,10 @@ optional = true
 version = "^0.6"
 optional = true
 
+[dependencies.failure]
+version = "^0.1.1"
+default-features = false
+
 [dev-dependencies]
 hex = "0.2"
 sha2 = "^0.6"
@@ -52,7 +56,7 @@ bincode = "^0.9"
 
 [features]
 default = ["std"]
-std = ["rand", "curve25519-dalek/std"]
+std = ["rand", "curve25519-dalek/std", "failure/std"]
 bench = []
 nightly = ["curve25519-dalek/nightly"]
 asm = ["sha2/asm"]
diff --git a/src/ed25519.rs b/src/ed25519.rs
index b790d91..da8c2cb 100644
--- a/src/ed25519.rs
+++ b/src/ed25519.rs
@@ -908,12 +908,7 @@ impl Display for FromBytesError {
     }
 }
 
-#[cfg(feature = "std")]
-impl ::std::error::Error for FromBytesError {
-    fn description(&self) -> &str {
-        "wrong length of bytes when constructing ed25519 object"
-    }
-}
+impl ::failure::Fail for FromBytesError { }
 
 #[inline(always)]
 fn check_bytes_len(bytes: &[u8], len: usize) -> Result<(), FromBytesError> {
diff --git a/src/lib.rs b/src/lib.rs
index d862d23..4d20d9e 100644
--- a/src/lib.rs
+++ b/src/lib.rs
@@ -263,6 +263,7 @@ extern crate curve25519_dalek;
 extern crate generic_array;
 extern crate digest;
 extern crate subtle;
+extern crate failure;
 
 #[cfg(feature = "std")]
 extern crate rand;