The original draft of Bridge Birds by Barry Hughart is available (by permission of the author) online at
http://www.massmedia.com/~mikeb/hughart/features.htm.
Bridge of Birds won the 1985 World Fantasy Award for best novel and the 1986 Mythopoeic Award for best fantasy. Subtitled as "A Novel of an Ancient China That Never Was," Bridge of Birds is a magical, funny and touching tale of Number 10 Ox, an earnest and innocent young man, and Master Li Kao, a degenerate scholar with "a slight flaw in my character," and their attempt to find a cure for a mysterious illness striking Number Ten Ox's village. This is one of my favorite novels ever, and I'm hardly alone, with 148 out of 166 reviewers on Amazon.com giving it 5 stars.
Note: the draft differs considerably from the final book - Number Ten Ox only makes a brief appearance (the story is told from the perspective of Li Kao instead), and scenes cut from the final draft that later appear in the sequels are included in this version.