diff --git a/numpydoc/__init__.py b/numpydoc/__init__.py
index 5d64ad71..30dba8fc 100644
--- a/numpydoc/__init__.py
+++ b/numpydoc/__init__.py
@@ -2,4 +2,7 @@
 
 __version__ = '0.8.0.dev0'
 
-from .numpydoc import setup
+
+def setup(app, *args, **kwargs):
+    from .numpydoc import setup
+    return setup(app, *args, **kwargs)
diff --git a/numpydoc/numpydoc.py b/numpydoc/numpydoc.py
index 7deecc55..e3b49b38 100644
--- a/numpydoc/numpydoc.py
+++ b/numpydoc/numpydoc.py
@@ -29,6 +29,7 @@
     raise RuntimeError("Sphinx 1.0.1 or newer is required")
 
 from .docscrape_sphinx import get_doc_object, SphinxDocString
+from . import __version__
 
 if sys.version_info[0] >= 3:
     sixu = lambda s: s
@@ -140,7 +141,8 @@ def setup(app, get_doc_object_=get_doc_object):
     app.add_domain(NumpyPythonDomain)
     app.add_domain(NumpyCDomain)
 
-    metadata = {'parallel_read_safe': True}
+    metadata = {'version': __version__,
+                'parallel_read_safe': True}
     return metadata
 
 # ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
diff --git a/setup.py b/setup.py
index a2dc46ad..ea42ecde 100644
--- a/setup.py
+++ b/setup.py
@@ -3,18 +3,15 @@
 import sys
 import os
 
+import setuptools  # may monkeypatch distutils in some versions. # noqa
 from distutils.command.sdist import sdist
-import setuptools
 from distutils.core import setup
 
+from numpydoc import __version__ as version
+
 if sys.version_info[:2] < (2, 7) or (3, 0) <= sys.version_info[0:2] < (3, 4):
     raise RuntimeError("Python version 2.7 or >= 3.4 required.")
 
-with open('numpydoc/__init__.py') as fid:
-    for line in fid:
-        if line.startswith('__version__'):
-            version = line.strip().split()[-1][1:-1]
-            break
 
 def read(fname):
     """Utility function to get README.rst into long_description.