This isn't a reverse quotemeta since quotemeta won't turn a newline into '\n' eval("\$x = \"$x\"");
should do what you want.
Update This is not ideal, although this will perform all escaped character conversions, if your string has an unescaped '$' in it then it will be replaced by a variable. For example: 'It costs $1.25' the '$1' will be replaced with the contents of $1