Keeping the formatting with “the_content_limit” tag

Dear gurus:

I’m using “the_content_limit” tag in my theme to display a list of the three most recent posts, along with the first 300 words of the post. It works just fine, except that it does not use the text formatting that appears in the original post. For instance, if in the first 300 words there is one word or phrase that is italicised, the italicisation is not reproduced in the text displayed using the_content_limit.

Is it not possible to keep this sort of formatting with the_content_limit, or is there an argument or CSS trick I need to know about?

My usage:

<?php the_content_limit(300, "[Read more...]"); ?>

Thanks!