I'm trying to find excellent samples of English literature,
yet know little about this particular author,
and there's a longwinded and complicated plot to piss off an English teacher at my school, but that's a different story
What's a good work of his to read?

Portrait of a Lady is pretty good, from what I remember.

Stay away from Turn of the Screw at all costs. Worst book ever.

Insidious Dreamer wrote: Unreadable.

If my English teacher (the one that he referred to) read that, she would hunt you down and kill you. She is currently in the last stages of her ~500 page dissertation centered around him.