His 1858 novel Phantastes: A Fairie Romance for Men and Women is the first book that can unambiguously qualify as an Isekai, predating even Alice in Wonderland. And MacDonald is known to have been a sort of Mentor to Lewis Carrol, it was because of MacDonald's advice and the fact that MacDonald's children loved it so much that Carrol published Alice in Wonderland in 1865.
George MacDonald's Magnum Opus was also an Isekai, Lilith published in 1895 is younger then Alice but still older then The Wizard of Oz, Peter Pan and the Narnia books. George MacDonald was also a Christian Minister and it is this book more then any other fiction he wrote that incorporates his belief in Universal Salvation, indeed how much it is allegorical of his view of The Gospel firmly makes it the proto-Narnia. The book is also technically a Vampire novel that predates Dracula, but not by long enough to have been a likely influence.
Those two novels may be the only ones he wrote that qualify as Isekai, but not the only ones that can be considered early Fantasy stories. Tolkien said he didn't admire MacDonald as much as Lewis did but admits in his letters that the Goblins in The Princess and The Goblin (1872) were an influence on how he wrote the Goblins in The Hobbit (not quite as much the Orcs in LOTRs). Indeed that novel is really the invention of the modern notion of Goblins, Goblins in Medieval European folklore were trickster spirits like Leprechauns, the notion of Goblins as evil minions you can fight a war with without needing to worry about the humanity of your villainous mooks begins with this novel.
There was an animated movie made out of The Princess and The Goblin in 1992, I decided to watch it, partly for my interest in MacDonald in general, but also because I figured it'd be interesting after how much Goblins were a meme of the Fall 2018 Anime season to familiarize myself with the origins of the modern Fantasy Goblin. It was a pretty decent movie, I'm amazed at how much agency the Princess had in it, remember this was a novel written by a Victorian era Pastor.
Probably the most enthusiastic literary student of George MacDonald was C. S. Lewis, even though Lewis didn't agree with Universal Salvation, he clearly respected it and didn't consider it something to condemn someone as a Heretic over.
The only reason Jadis, The White Witch, is identified as a descendant of Lilith is to homage George MacDonald's Lilith. Frankly I think the Lady of the Green Kirtle makes more sense to associate with Lilith between her shape shifting into a serpent and being Lewis' only Femme Fatale character that I'm aware of. The character of Jadis is much more modeled after The Snow Queen.
Now I've already talked about the ways in which I feel the Narnia books are closer to modern Anime Isekai then other early Western Novels that can be called Isekai. Though clearly a lot of current Anime critics wish the genre would more often follow Voyage of The Dawn Treader's attitude towards slavery.
The big difference between Lilith and most Anime Isekai is how much older the protagonist is. But Lilith can in fact seem perfectly suited to Anime in a lot of ways, it's a story where all but 2 of the most important characters are women, and one of them is arguably a Neko.
All of George MacDonald's novels are in the Public Domain now, so I'd love to see some Anime studio try adapting them.
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