Parsing JSON; back-slash problem

This seems like a pretty basic question, but it has me stumped. Here's my scenario: I'm using Douglas Crockford's JSON2.js to parse an object in JavaScript, which I then pass to a PHP script to store in a file. I use JSON.stringify() on the object, which logs to the console as this: {"employees":{"data":{"John":{"fname":"John","lname":"Doe","city":"Toronto","country":"Canada"}}}} Then I use the jQuery POST function to send it to a PHP script. Before doing anything with it in PHP, I log the received value to the console, and this is what I get: {\"employees\":{\"data\":{\"John\":{\"fname\":\"John\",\"lname\":\"Doe\",\"city\":\"Toronto\",\"country\":\"Canada\"}}}} The problem is, when I call the script to retrieve this data from a file, JSON.parse can't parse it because of the back-slashes. I'm pretty sure my problem is on the PHP side (since it's fine coming out of JS); what do I need to do to fix this? is a preg_replace enough?