The Old Curiosity Shop

Tonight, I'm waiting for the PBS show Dickens' "The Old Curiosity Shop." I haven't read the book completely. I am fortunate to have access to the 1st cheap edition of the book written in 1848. Believe me, it is difficult to get through the story because I'm so intrigued by the book cover, the pages, the odd numbers and letter found on the bottom of pages.
I'm an inveterate reader of fantasy. I've followed Richard and Kahlan in the numerous volumes of Goodkind's series or Rand and Elaine in Jordon's—when will the posthumous last book of the series come out? So it shouldn't be such a stretch to follow the many characters popping up chapter by chapter in Dickens. But after meeting Quilp, Kit, little Nell among the slew of others, I'm blown away at the depth of feeling one has for these characters based on their description alone. One can see, smell, touch by virtue of their clothing alone—wouldn't want to touch Quilp!
I'd love for my distance learning writing students to come up with this sense of detail in their writing, or actually in any of my virtual classes. To write "used literacy curriculum materials" versus writing "helped student CT do a comparison of a hermit crab with a Dungeness crab in their National Geographic article. As Barry Lane says "Show, don't tell."