Today in history: Literary feuds

Two famous clashes around literature took place on February 14 — and both of them in the 1980s, no less.

February 14, 1980: Playwright Lillian Hellman sued novelist and critic Mary McCarthy for defamation. 

Here's a summary of Encyclopedia Britannica's examination of the case:

For decades, McCarthy and Hellman had publicly expressed their political differences with one another, but the lawsuit came from the former's comments on a TV show.

When McCarthy was asked to name overrated writers, she answered Lillian Hellman, and also said: “I said once in some interview that every word she writes is a lie, including ‘and’ and ‘the.’”

The lawsuit was set to go to trial in 1984, but Hellman died that same year, and under state law in New York — where the lawsuit was filed — defamation claims don't survive the defamed person's death.

February 14, 1989: Ayatollah Khomeini called on Muslims to kill Salman Rushdie for his "blasphemous" book, The Satanic Verses. 

Again, here's how Encyclopedia Britannica characterizes the situation.

The Satanic Verses follows two men — both Muslims — who survive an airplane bombing; as one of the men falls into the ocean, he transforms into the the angel Gabriel and has several dreams, one of which is a revisionist history of the founding of Muslim.

That subplot was what enraged some conservative Muslims, including Khomeini, who issued a fatwa against the author.

Rushdie spent much of the next decade under police protection, and other people connected with the book were met with violence, though not all of the attackers' motives were known with certainty. 

While Iran's government declared in 1998 that it no longer sought to enforce the fatwa, an Iranian foundation's bounty for anyone who killed Rushdie was raised multiple times even after 1998.

Less dramatic, but still dramatic: Oscar Wilde's play The Importance of Being Earnest opened in London on February 14, 1895.