Born in
Northumberland, he was the second son of
Walter and
Hilda Runciman. His parents were members of the
Liberal Party and the first married couple to sit simultaneously in Parliament. His father was created
Viscount Runciman of Doxford in 1937. His paternal grandfather,
Walter Runciman, 1st Baron Runciman, was a shipping magnate. Later he came to be able to make use of sources in other languages as well: Arabic, Turkish, Persian, Hebrew,
Syriac,
Armenian and Georgian. A
King's Scholar at
Eton College, he was an exact contemporary and close friend of
George Orwell. was told by Runciman during an on-camera interview that he [Runciman] considered himself "not a historian, but a writer of literature." According to
Christopher Tyerman, Professor of the History of the Crusades at
Hertford College, Oxford, Runciman created a work that "across the
Anglophone world continues as a base reference for popular attitudes, evident in print, film, television and on the internet."
Occult In his personal life, Runciman was an old-fashioned English
eccentric, known as an
æsthete, raconteur, and enthusiast of the occult. According to Andrew Robinson, a history teacher at Eton, "he played piano duets with the
last Emperor of China, told tarot cards for
King Fuad of Egypt, narrowly missed being blown up by the Germans in the
Pera Palace Hotel in Istanbul and twice hit the jackpot on slot machines in Las Vegas". A story from his time at Eton of an incident with a then-friend, Eric Blair, who later became famous writing as
George Orwell, is told in
Gordon Bowker's biography of Orwell: "Drawing from new correspondence with Steven Runciman, one of Orwell's friends at Eton (which he attended from 1917 to 1921), Bowker reveals the (perhaps surprising) fascination of Blair with the occult. A senior boy, Phillip Yorke, had attracted the disfavour of both Blair and Runciman so they planned a revenge. As Runciman recalled, they fashioned an image of Yorke from candle wax and broke off a leg. To their horror, shortly afterwards, Yorke not only broke his leg but in July died of leukaemia. The story of what happened soon spread and, in somewhat garbled form, became legend. Blair and Runciman suddenly found themselves regarded as distinctly odd, and to be treated warily".
Homosexuality Runciman was
homosexual. There is little evidence of a long-term lover, but Runciman boasted of a number of casual sexual encounters, and told a friend in later life: "I have the temperament of a
harlot, and so am free of emotional complications." Nevertheless, Runciman was discreet about his homosexuality, partly perhaps because of religious feelings that homosexuality was "an inarguable offence against God". Runciman also felt that his sexuality had potentially held back his career.
Max Mallowan related a conversation in which Runciman told him "that he felt his life had been a failure because of his gayness".
Death He died in
Radway, Warwickshire, while visiting relatives, aged 97. He never married. ==Assessment==