Warners initially tried to borrow Joan Fontaine for Emily Brontë so she could play opposite her real-life sister Olivia de Havilland, but when an agreement couldn't be reached, the part was played by Warner contractee Ida Lupino.
Prominently featured supporting actor Montagu Love had been dead for almost three years by the time the picture was released.
At the time that this picture was released, actor James Mason and his then-wife were planning a film on the life of Branwell Brontë. The film was to be called "The Upturned Glass" (referring to Branwell's alcoholism), but was finally canceled because Warner Bros. was making "Devotion." When "The Upturned Glass" was finally released, it had nothing to do with the Brontës. Mason later judged "Devotion" to be "shockingly bad."
Filmed between November 11, 1942, and mid-February 1943, the movie didn't premiere until April 5, 1946 at the Strand Theater in Manhattan. It is widely believed that the release was delayed while Olivia de Havilland, after completing L'Exubérante Smoky (1943) on loan to RKO, successfully sued Warner Bros. to terminate her contract without providing the studio an extra six months to make up for her time on suspension. Another explanation is that its release was delayed because it was a costume drama and, while likely to do well in the USA, would be impossible to market on the war-torn side of the Atlantic. It is somewhat doubtful Warner Bros would have shelved an expensive film like this, purely to spite an actress who was in litigation with the studio. However, that explanation begs the question: why would the studio go ahead and make the film in the first place if they knew it would not sell overseas and they would realistically have to shelve it until the end of the war - which in 1942, could not be foreseen.
While this WB film was sitting on the shelf awaiting release, 20th Century-Fox produced a two-reel condensation of the story, Three Sisters of the Moors (1944), as a promotional short to be shown in advance of their completed forthcoming feature Jane Eyre (1943).